


Warm Me Up

by MegaKat



Series: Resurrection [1]
Category: Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Mating Bites, Mating Bond, Oral Sex, PWP, Sex to Stay Warm, blanket scenario
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-01-09 21:08:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1150807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MegaKat/pseuds/MegaKat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blame MoonMageGoddess for this one. </p><p>Destined to find each other by fate and the actions of their guardians before Rei and Gohan died in battle, Trunks and Usagi finally meet and continue their mutual quest to restore the Earth after the androids' defeat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: The Beginning of the End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In love with each other for over a year, Mirai Gohan and Sailor Mars haven't mated because of duty. But when Mars sees their future in the sacred fire one night, she goes to him to surrender to her love for him and the only thing she's ever wanted for herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp... yall have MoonMageGoddess for blame for this shit. And JUST BECAUSE I know she wants the sequel chapter, I posted THIS first. That's right, girl, you get the sad, angsty Gohan/Rei chapter!
> 
> Almost done with the Trunks/Usagi followup to the original oneshot though!

                It was her scent that woke him, but he’d always known that it would be.

                No, not a touch, not a softly spoken word… but her sweet, alluring scent. The scent that aroused him and his beast every time he so much as caught a whiff of it and made it damned near impossible to fight whenever she was around. The gods only knew that he’d likely be dead if she’d been at the last fight, the one that had taken his arm. He’d already been so distracted by Trunks and keeping him safe that if Sailor Mars had been present, he’d have surely perished.

                Gohan would say ‘if she only knew what she did to me,’ but he knew he’d never have to say that. He knew that she knew what she did to him. She’d witnessed it firsthand… and mouth. That was it, though. They hadn’t taken it any farther; she wouldn’t let him. She’d insisted that her princess was her priority, and Gohan had accepted her wishes, even though he’d admitted that he didn’t like it one bit.

                And now she was here, in the one place he’d warned her away from if she didn’t want to wind up pinned beneath him and taken, her virginity claimed and her shoulder marked. He wanted her, all of her, but he’d been honorable enough to explain his people’s mating customs to her and that she could never, ever enter his room under any circumstances.

                Not unless she was coming to him as his mate.

                “Mars, you know I told you—“

                “I know,” he heard her breathe from across the room, her tearful whisper somehow cutting off a low, possessive growl from his beast that had started even before he’d woken. No, his beast had been alerted to her presence for several minutes before it had smacked Gohan awake with the knowledge that her scent was perfuming his territory. It had simply basked in that delicious, mouthwatering aroma for a little while, had savored it and the way it mixed in with his own scent, which clung to everything in the room. “I… I’ll go… if you want me to,” she continued softly, her voice shy and unsure.

                Gohan had never heard her sound unsure before. Never. She always knew what she wanted, always had a plan and an answer for everything, and he almost expected a trap of some kind and briefly wondered if it was really Android 18 playing some sort of trick on him.

                No, that was stupid. His ears might deceive him, but his nose and his beast couldn’t be fooled… and his beast had only ever purred for one woman, and that was Sailor Mars. “You know what I want, Red,” he replied evenly, though his words were tinged with longing and just a little bit of bitterness. It wasn’t like they’d felt the pull—that mythical tug in the chest that Vegeta had said every warrior dreamed of feeling one day—but Gohan loved her so deeply that it hurt when she’d refused on multiple occasions to mate with him… especially when she’d confessed that she felt the same for Earth’s strongest warrior. She hadn’t said the words, but she’d said she’d felt the same… but still, she wouldn’t mate with him.

                No, her precious princess and her duty were more important to her, and while he understood, it still soured inside of his heart that Mars wouldn’t trust him enough to bring her princess here for safeguarding. She hadn’t even trusted him with her real name. Gohan had her heart and he’d explored every inch of her beautiful, battle-scarred body, but she wouldn’t even give him her real name. ‘In time,’ she’d said. ‘One day. One day, when we don’t have to fight anymore, I’ll give you everything, I swear it, and not just my name. Everything.’

                “Why are you here, Red?” Gohan asked when she didn’t reply to him. She hadn’t left, either, but she was still motionless, near his open window, her shadow barely visible even to his superior vision. It was only when he heard her sniffle and draw shaky breath that he realized she was crying, and the half-Saiyan sighed guiltily as he hauled himself up with his remaining arm, the stump of his left aching fiercely. It was still healing, and healing fast, but it hurt and probably would for days to come, even with his Saiyan healing aiding the process.

                “What’s wrong?” He asked as he swung his legs out of the bed and momentarily forgot that she was in his territory, moving in the darkness to stand before the shadow half-hiding behind his curtain. If Mars was crying, the world was surely about to end and even his beast knew that. Something was wrong. “Is Serenity safe? She isn’t hurt is she? I can go get Bulma and some med capsules if you need me to—“

                “No,” Mars choked out as she moved forward and wrapped her arms around him tightly, her face resting over his heart, where it always rested after they’d both come several times and satisfied their mutual need for each other. Only now, she was listening for the steady beat that would reassure her that he was still alive, that the fire was wrong.

                It had shown her his death and she’d fought every urge and instinct to go to him, but when she’d heard about the battle that had apparently taken his arm, Hino Rei had finally listened not only to her heart, but to her princess.

                Usagi had told her repeatedly not to deny herself Gohan’s love, had encouraged her nearly every time she’d broken down and sought him out or aided him in battle, and this evening, Usagi had stated plainly that if Rei didn’t go to him, she’d regret it for the rest of her life.

                Because the fire had told her he was going to die… and soon. This last battle hadn’t killed him, but the next surely would, or the battle after that. The fire was never, ever wrong. “G—Gohan, I… I thought you were dead,” she sobbed after holding him and quietly weeping into his chest.

                He was going to die, and because of her stupid honor and pride, she was only going to have a handful of days or weeks with him as his mate. She could have had him for a year at least, but because her vow to protect Usagi trumped everything, she’d ignored her princess’s plea to follow her heart. She would ignore it no longer, but whatever time they had left would be bittersweet. There would be no hope of a future with him, because he had no future left. “I’m sorry, Gohan. I’m so sorry. Please… please forgive me.”

                He’d been about to diffuse her tears with a declaration that he was healthy as a horse, but the fatalistic tone of her voice changed his tune, and Gohan shivered as he looked down at her in the dim light of the waxing crescent moon and realized that she _wasn’t_ Sailor Mars. His nose and beast hadn’t lied, but the woman in his arms wasn’t in a fuku; she had on only a long skirt and a button down blouse, and her hair was slung back in a messy braid that exposed a gorgeous face that was similar to—but still different from—the face of the woman who he’d fallen hopelessly in love with. “…Red?”

                Her eyes puffy and red from crying for the last three days, Rei looked up at him and smiled, though it was bitter. “Rei,” she answered. “My name is Hino Rei.”

                “Rei,” Gohan whispered. Her smile was full of bitter regret, but his was nothing but warm and filled with love, even as he deduced why she was crying her heart out as she held him.

She knew something. She’d seen something, as was her gift. That was one of the very few things she’d divulged about herself, that she was psychic, and that her visions were never wrong. She’d seen his death, and out of longing and grief, she’d come to him.

                He understood the bitterness of her smile—and it _was_ a very bitter pill for him to swallow, knowing that everything he’d worked for would soon end for him—but he couldn’t help but not care at that moment. She’d loved him enough to come to him even when she’d sworn she wouldn’t before the androids were dead.

                She’d broken the solemn vow she’d made… and she’d done it for him, because she loved him. The knowledge that she loved him _that_ much washed away any possible bitterness for him, and Gohan could only smile as his beast stirred once more and a soft, reassuring purr filled his room as he bent his head and kissed her.

                Gohan had meant for it to be gentle, sweet and comforting, but like most of their kisses it only wound up morphing into something hot and eager, both of them burning head to toe with desire just from that one little bit of contact. “Come to bed,” he whispered between kisses, coaxing her with his whole arm to step with him towards the king-size in the middle of the room without breaking the mating of their mouths. “Mate with me, beautiful.”

                He’d whispered those last four words dozens of times to her and she’d always denied him as gently as possible, reminding him of her vow… but this time, Rei broke the kiss to gaze into his dark eyes, the love and desire in them unmistakable, even in the near-dark. “Gohan… I…”

                “You don’t have to say it, Red. I know,” he whispered, kissing her again as his only hand worked open the buttons of her shirt. “I know why you’re here,” Gohan breathed as his lips moved on to her throat and he found the spot near her ear that always made her purr with pleasure. She didn’t purr this time, she only choked out a muffled sob into his collarbone, which he quickly silenced with another kiss to her lips. “Don’t cry. Not tonight. Tonight’s for making love, not for grieving. Especially not while I’m still here.”

                “Gohan, you need to know,” Rei insisted. “ _Please_ , let me speak.”

                Her shirt was shoved to the floor even as he nodded, and Gohan reined in his beast with the reminder that she wasn’t stopping him, just putting everything on pause for a moment. “I don’t know if it’s a good thing to know where and how I’ll die, but ok,” he murmured as he caressed her jawline, then found himself waiting patiently when she only looked up at him silently, tears streaming from her violet eyes. “ _Rei_ … whatever it is, just tell me.”

                “I die a month later,” she whispered, her heart breaking when his eyes narrowed and he shook his head in denial, stooping to pick up her shirt and hand it to her. “Gohan, it doesn’t—“

                “No,” the half-Saiyan growled, “I won’t mate you just to have you die from grief.”

                Catching his gaze, Rei cupped his face in her hands when he tried to look away and turn from her. “Gohan,” she stated firmly, “I die anyway. There’s no changing it, no possible scenario in which I live. So please… at least make love to me before we die. It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted for myself,” she added in a hoarse, tearful whisper. “ _You_ are the only thing I’ve ever wanted for myself. I love you.”

                He crumbled at the sound of those words—he’d longed to hear them from her for over a year—and before Gohan knew what he was even doing, he was kissing her senseless and dragging her into his bed, coming down on top of her in a heap of muscle and trembling when she rocked her hips into his and her fingertips caressed, explored and stroked every inch of him in encouragement. “No, don’t stop,” she whimpered when the firm head of his cock pressed against her entrance, only to retreat and for Gohan to break the kiss to nip at her shoulder.

                “You’re not wet, Red,” he breathed in her ear before trailing his lips down her throat, over her collarbone, then back to her shoulder. His beast had put the brakes on everything the moment he’d felt the lack of arousal between her thighs, and he knew it was because she was scared. He could smell it. She was probably scared of the future, not of him, but he definitely wasn’t going to make love to her unless she was ready for him. “Forget everything, baby. Just for tonight. Be mine for one night and just forget,” he urged her as he grasped the skirt that was hiked up to her hips and slid down to completely remove it from her.

                “I… I can’t forget, Gohan,” Rei choked out as she sat up and pressed against him tightly. “Y—You don’t understand. I’ve watched it so many times, trying to find a way out for both of us, but… but there’s no way out… and I can’t unsee it. Every time I close my eyes, I see you dying over and over.”

                She was openly weeping again, clinging to him desperately, shaking as he held her with his remaining arm and purred comfortingly for her. “Rei,” he murmured soothingly as he drug his lips over her shoulder, “I’m not dead yet. I’m right here, and when Trunks kills them, your princess will bring us back. You’ll wake up in my arms— _both_ of them—and the war will be over. Everyone will be alive again. We’ll be together and happy. We’ll get married. I’ll give you all the children you want, like you told me you wanted. Look at me, baby.” When her violet eyes slowly met his, Gohan gave her his best smile, the one that made him look like his father, and nodded slowly. “We’ll have our happy ending… so don’t cry. Don’t be sad. And don’t you dare feel bitter because we’ll only have a short time together before we die—uh-uh, no. Don’t deny that you feel bitter, because I know you all too well. Think of everything we’ll have when Serenity brings us all back.”

                “I… I can’t.” The only thing she could think of was the sight of him lying face-down in the city in a puddle of water, with Trunks standing over him. The image had been seared into her brain by how many times she’d watched it in an effort to find a loophole. But no, every path they took had the exact same outcome, on the exact same day. She just didn’t know _what_ day, only that there was no moon overhead because of cloud cover and an oncoming storm.

                As she relived it in her head again and wept hopelessly, Rei suddenly felt a searing pain in her shoulder and cried out, digging her nails into Gohan’s back, but before she could speak and ask what he’d done, she felt a sucking sensation… and pure pleasure, followed by the feeling of a calm mind full of love joining with her own.

                It was almost like she was in Usagi’s head, as if she were communicating with her telepathically… only it wasn’t Usagi. And it wasn’t just telepathy, either… she couldn’t shake the other mind. It was one with hers, flooding her with love… _so much_ love that it made her heart hurt and sing simultaneously.

                The image of his death was wiped from her mind by all of that love, and in its place she saw only pictures of them tangled together in his bed, against his wall, in his shower, and on his floor—in all of them, he was inside of her, taking her, making her his in every way as she came for him repeatedly, and Rei felt a responding warmth between her thighs as the sucking at her shoulder continued and the sound of a low, possessive growl filled the air.

                _Mine,_ she heard loud and clear in her head. _All mine. That’s it… get wet for me, Red. I need you. I need to be inside of you. Need to be one with you. Need you need you need you..._

With that chant joining in with the love filling her from head to toe, Rei moved against him in silent permission, barely concious of it as she floated along in the psychic nirvana he’d created for her with the half-bond.

The funny thing was, Gohan had no clue what he was doing or how he was doing it since he had no experience with the bond and only minimal telepathic training with Piccolo. It had simply happened that way thanks to the depth of his love for her, and now she was drifting in that wonderful sea of emotion even as she drug his mouth from her shoulder to kiss him heatedly and tug him down on top of her.

 _Make love to me, Gohan,_ she whispered in his mind. While Gohan had no experience with psychic powers, Rei had eighteen years of it, and reaching into his head to speak to him was as easy to her as breathing. It was why she’d been thrown into his thoughts so easily, why she was still so deeply immersed in his love for her, and for once in her life she absolutely loved her gift of mind reading. _No, no foreplay; we’ve had a year of foreplay, I need you now,_ she insisted softly when he tried to break the kiss and the images in his mind changed to pictures of his mouth buried between her thighs. _Need all of you… please…_

“I love you,” she spoke aloud and through the bond at the same time. “Please, Gohan.”

_but it’ll hurt_

Rei hushed the incomplete thought by reaching between them to stroke his heavy arousal slowly and position it between her legs, gasping at how wet she found herself for him. She was definitely ready for him, and raised her hips to press her drenched entrance against the swollen head. “I’m yours, Gohan, and I’m offering you all of me. Please, take me,” she whispered as she used her legs to encourage him to lower his weight onto her, pushing his thick cock into her in the process.

There was no flash of pain since her hymen had been lost in a fight years ago, but Rei still held her breath as his combined impressive length and girth caused her more than just a little discomfort even before it was halfway inside of her. _Don’t stop,_ she told him when he paused and she sensed that he was worried about hurting her.

Knowing when to follow orders, Gohan panted for air and nodded weakly as he rained kisses down her silky throat, groaning once he was buried in her to the root. “Even better than I ever imagined,” he choked out. “Fuck… Red… Rei,” he corrected himself, “I won’t last. There’s just no way.”

His confession was coupled with a deep blush of embarrassment that she could sense through the bond even though she couldn’t see it in the dark, but Rei knew he could see her smile when she couldn’t contain a giggle. “Like our first time, then,” she teased, briefly marveling at how her sadness and grief had been washed away by all of his love for her and the sea of it that she was still basking in within his mind. She picked up on another surface thought then, and before he could voice it, she grinned and kissed him long and slow, moaning when he withdrew slightly and thrust back into her.

 _I can feel your pleasure,_ she informed him. _Bite me when you come, I think I’ll come, too._

_oh hell yes_

Rei laughed softly at that and urged him through the bond to move, and when he did she was swamped by his pleasure, buried so deep in his head that she felt every little nuance of how tight and wet and good and perfect she felt for him. She moaned loudly at that, the pleasure her new focal point while the ocean of love became a cocoon that simply surrounded her, a backdrop for the white hot shots of fire running through every nerve ending as he moved slow and deep. “Gohan… oh… Gohan, I… I think I’m…”

She didn’t come with him, she actually came before him, and Rei choked out a whimper when he sunk his teeth into her mark and she felt his love take on a possessive, protective edge just as she peaked and was bowled over by a tsunami of pleasure and love and more pleasure when he followed her over the edge. The psychic connection spurred on a second climax, and the princess of Mars couldn’t contain a loud moan of his name as he spilled inside of her, adding to her pleasure, giving her one last, hard thrust as he released her mark and his lips crashed into hers.

_i love you i love you i love you mine mine mine i love you_

When Rei could finally focus on something besides the love and pleasure and she’d finally wiggled her way out of his head enough to just float on the surface of it, she sputtered at the beatific look on his face that she could just barely make out. “I should’ve expected that goofy ass grin,” she snorted, only to relent when he laughed and the carefree sound of it made her smile, just as his laugh always did. “So… how long before we can do _that_ again?” She wondered aloud as she remembered all of the times they’d made love without any penetration and how quickly he usually recovered.

Gohan just grinned again as he stirred inside of her, but instead of her usual rebuke to wipe that smile off his face, she only blushed hotly as her lips twitched up and her eyes fluttered half-shut. “Maybe another minute? That fast enough for you, Rei?”

“Mmhmm,” she sighed, pulling him down for a kiss that was long, slow, and one of those rare, wonderful kisses that wasn’t filled with heat and lust. No, this was sweet and loving, and both of them savored it as he hardened inside of her again and she wrapped her legs around his waist once more. “I love you,” Rei whispered when he broke it to look down at her and memorize her face. “No matter what happens, Gohan. I love you.”

“And I love you, Rei,” he breathed. “Always have… and when we wake together, we’re going to be happy. The happiest we’ve ever been.”

She couldn’t ask it aloud, her throat had closed as her eyes filled with tears, but she didn’t feel bitter anymore. Just sad for Usagi and Trunks. Both of them were going to be so alone. It was the end for her and Gohan, but it would be just the beginning of the worst for them. _Promise me you’ll tell Trunks. Don’t tell him we’ve mated… but tell him about Serenity. I… there’s something else I saw in the fire, Gohan. But if you tell him we mated, it won’t come to pass. And if you take him with you on the battle that kills you, it won’t come to pass. And… I can’t bite you. You can’t let me bite you back, I’m sorry._

Not receiving the mark in return was a disappointment, but if Trunks and Serenity both depended upon it, Gohan wasn’t going to argue. After they woke, when the world was whole again, he knew she’d mark him in return without hesitation, that went without saying. “I promise. You’ll give me the details in the morning, Rei, and I’ll follow them to the letter. But let tonight be for us, not for the little saviors we’re guarding?” Gohan asked, feeling a pang of guilt for being selfish—even though selfishness was something he’d very rarely indulged in over the years. “I think we deserve it.”

“No… you’re right,” Rei allowed as she kissed him. “You’re absolutely right. We _do_ deserve this. Just one night without thinking about duty.” She used her Senshi strength to roll him then and winked as she perched there on top of him, flexing around his renewed erection. “Now… I’d like to feel that hand on me this time, thank you very much.”

Pleased that she didn’t seem to mind the lack of both of them, Gohan was more than happy to give her pert ass a squeeze as he rocked up into her. “Yes, ma’am.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the original oneshot and stands as-is. So if there are discrepancies anywhere about ages in future chapters, go with the newest versions of this.

“Damned wind.”

                Well, it wasn’t so much the wind that was the problem; Trunks didn’t have a problem flying in it, but with the way it was blowing the snow around, causing whiteout conditions, he couldn’t see shit. Warming himself with his ki, he let the wind buffet him around in the air for a short time while he tried to get his bearings, focusing on the kis nearest to him in order to locate his mother or Gohan.

                His one-armed mentor was still a long ways away, and his mother was back home, directly to the east. “Damn if I didn’t get turned around,” he sighed. Trunks tied his long hair back as he turned in the right direction and was about to head the other way until he felt another ki just below him. It was unlike any energy signature he’d ever felt before… but it was fading fast. _Must be someone caught in the blizzard,_ he thought as he descended rapidly, focusing even more sharply on the dying ki as he drew closer.

                He was surprised when he found an actual cabin, but after some thought he realized that no one would have survived even five minutes out in the storm without some sort of shelter unless they had the proper gear or knew how to use their ki to warm them.

                The lavender-haired Saiyan closed the door behind him as quickly as he opened it in an attempt to keep from letting a ton of snow in, but the wind pushed in a nice little drift anyway. It was dim in the one-windowed cabin, so dim that Trunks couldn’t see the owner of the fading ki. “Hello?” Hearing no answer, he strode across only room to find a large comforter in a corner with a lump beneath it—the only kind of lump that was caused by a body in the fetal position. “Hey, wake up!” Trunks snapped as he shook the form. “Can you hear me!? Hey!”

                “Fuck,” he whispered when there was still only silence. “What was it Mother said about hypothermia?” He muttered to himself as he drew back the quilt. All thoughts of science class left him as he met a set of half-open blue eyes set in a heart shaped-face that was surrounded by a golden halo of hair… and he felt a fluttering tug in his lower belly. “Oh… oh, _shit_ ,” he sputtered as he felt his inner beast rising up inside of him—just as his Mother had also warned him about years ago, the moment he’d begun Saiyan puberty and battled through his first burning. “Ok, Trunks… worry about all that later,” he chastised himself. “Body heat. Body heat is the trick.”

                Ignoring his own shivers as he stripped off his clothing, he eventually settled in next to the body of his beast’s true mate and yelped at the sensation of her ice-cold skin against his balls. “Dear GODS! Cold! Cold cold COLD!” Once he was over that, Trunks rolled them up in the blanket taco-style, drawing the thick patchwork over their heads and tucking it around them tightly. It was pitch beneath it, but he solved that with his ki, keeping it low so as not to damage her slightly frost-bitten hands and ears. Her lips were blue, too, and he rolled his eyes when his beast suggested kissing them to warm them up. “Shut the fuck up,” he muttered, despite the fact that he was letting his inner Saiyan take over to unbutton her sweater, and only because skin-to-skin contact would do the job of warming her a lot faster than the way she was currently dressed.

                Trunks heard a soft rumbling the moment her bare breasts were pressed tightly to his muscled chest, and he blushed and groaned at the same time. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” He hissed at his beast, who’d started purring as it worked on the button and fly of her jeans. “She’s fucking dying and you’re thinking about mating!?” He snorted. “Seriously?”

                He and his beast grumbled at each other for another minute or two while he managed to get off her shoes and pants without lifting the edge of the blanket, but the moment his bare groin was pressed to her panties he felt himself respond a little and he groaned in frustration. “Can we save it for when she’s _warm_?” He asked the beast aloud, cursing the fact that he never wore underwear.

_“Just like your father,” his mother had chuckled. “Vegeta actually laughed at me once when I asked why I never saw any boxers in the wash… that was before we got together, you know. Then after… well… let’s just say that your father was the god of going commando. He claimed that it was a lot easier to get to the punch like that. Saiyan males,” she chuckled. “I know for a fact that Gohan doesn’t wear any, either. I swear, I think an aversion to tightie-whities is embedded in your damned genetic code.”_

“I hope you’re laughing your fucking ass off from the past, Father,” Trunks growled. “Oh yes… I’m sure he’d find this fucking _hilarious_.” Making a mental note to slap his father upside the head the next time he visited the past, Trunks sighed and buried his face in the woman’s golden hair, drawing in her scent just as Vegeta had told him to when Trunks had asked him about Saiyan mating urges. Sure enough it calmed him, and he allowed his beast to continue to purr as he placed her frostnipped hands between their chests to warm them and wrapped himself tightly around her. “Wake up,” he urged after a few minutes, sensing that her ki was growing just a little stronger.

                Deciding that it was safe to use just a little more of his own energy to warm her, Trunks stopped shivering and relaxed as his glow warmed him as well. It also gave him a better look at her and he sighed in sheer awe at her angelic beauty. His intended’s skin was creamy and flawless, her lips still a little blue but slowly reverting to a lovely shade of pink, and her long-lashed eyelids had slipped shut to cover the gorgeous eyes he’d gotten a glimpse of. And that hair… he couldn’t get over how long it was or how soft it felt and how good it smelled. The scent reminded him of a warm summer night under the stars, and he breathed it in once more to calm his beast as it rose up again.

                Twenty minutes passed like that before she finally stirred, and Trunks gently hushed her when she whimpered and squirmed and nearly shoved the blanket off of them. “The blanket’s trapping the heat from my ki, so don’t move, my angel. Shh… it’s ok. You’re safe.” She seemed to relax a little at that, shivering as he pressed her even tighter to him. “Still cold?” A little nod against his shoulder made him slowly begin to rub at her back and shoulders, and he inwardly sighed as he remembered his mother telling him to rub the chest. “Not getting fresh, alright?” Slipping a calloused hand between them, he moved it under and between her breasts as he tried his best not to directly touch them, using just a little more ki… until she flinched and pulled back instinctively. “Too hot?”

                A nod and another shiver made him lower his power back to where it had been before, but he went rigid when he felt her pulse and breathing slowing down. “Your core temperature’s still too low, angel. No, no… don’t go to sleep, sweetie. Wake up… open your eyes… that’s it,” he whispered encouragingly, brushing his fingers down her cheek as he gazed into those crystal blue orbs. A chuckle escaped his lips when he felt her flinch again, this time in reaction to feeling the same pull he’d experienced when he’d first met her gaze. “Do you know what that means, sweetheart?” Wide eyes and a timid nod answered him, and Trunks couldn’t stop himself from bending his head to brush his lips over hers. “Don’t worry, angel… I’m more concerned with getting you warm right now… though my beast keeps suggesting friction,” he added with a little roll of his eyes.

                “So sleepy…”

                If Trunks had been human he wouldn’t have understood those barely uttered words, but he did and began rubbing at her chest again, no longer concerned with trying to keep his hands in platonic areas. “Don’t go to sleep,” he ordered firmly. “You might not wake up. Keep talking, alright? What’s your name?”

                It took a long minute, but she finally licked her slightly chapped lips and answered. “Usagi…” Her hand pressed to his chest after another minute. “Trunks… Saiyan…”

                “That’s right, sweetheart, very good. How do you know I’m Saiyan? Hell, how did you know about the pull? Very few know the nuances of Saiyan courtship outside of my family.”

                “Lunarian,” she breathed sleepily, pressing his hand to her chest once more. “Past life…” Usagi licked her lips once more and swallowed. “Thirsty…”

                “Thank the gods I always carry a canteen and some food,” Trunks replied, digging around blindly behind him for the item tied to his sword sheath. “Here,” he instructed gently, rolling onto his back and tugging her up so that her head rested on his chest. “Drink, my little moon goddess. Slowly,” he reminded her. “I’ve got some chapstick too, if you want.”

                Usagi gave him a weak nod as she carefully sucked some water into her mouth and swallowed, nursing at the opening of the canteen like a fragile newborn. She let him cap it eventually and slumped down on top of him, her energy spent just from the effort of lifting her head, but she sighed with pleasure as she felt him applying the balm to her dry lips. “Thanks…”

                “Usagi, I don’t want to scare you, but your ki is fading,” Trunks whispered fearfully. “My mother called it ‘rewarming shock’ in science class.”

                “I know… sorry…”

                Those three words were spoken so calmly that Trunks’s beast roared a little at them; oh hell no, she was not just going to accept death lightly! “I won’t let you die; do you understand me, Usagi?” His inner Saiyan grunted. “So wake up before I have to do something you won’t be happy about.”

                “Can’t… sorry…” Usagi’s eyes fluttered shut and he felt her go limp against him, her breathing shallow and labored.

                If he could have even stopped his beast he wouldn’t have; Trunks was not going to let his mate die so soon after finding her, before he’d even had the chance to find a little happiness in his war-ravaged world. His teeth sank into the shoulder just below his mouth without warning, his purr jerking as it increased in volume and his body tightened at the sheer pleasure rolling right through him. “Mmm… tastes even better than I thought it would,” he murmured as he removed his teeth from her flesh, his tongue travelling over the fresh wound. “Wake up,” he ordered, giving her a little jolt through the brand-new half-bond. He didn’t even give her a chance to speak before pressing his shoulder to her mouth. “Bite down,” he commanded. “It’ll tie our life forces and you can draw off of mine to survive. Do it _now_ ,” he added when he felt a very faint protest in the back of her mind.

                Usagi’s eyes cracked open slightly when he shook her a little roughly. “Wha…?”

                “Bite my shoulder,” he urged her, unable to stop his beast as his lips began to leisurely wander her cool throat. “As hard as I bit yours, sweetheart… you need to draw blood. Just do it,” he added when he sensed another protest forming in her mind. “It’ll make you feel better, I promise… and then we can focus on using a little friction to get your core temperature up.”

                The sweet warmth radiating from her bleeding shoulder roused her just enough to open her mouth and bite down, but she was so weak that she couldn’t even bruise him. “You tried… it’s ok, Trunks…”

                “Here,” he grunted. “I don’t know if this will work but I’m willing to try it.” Reaching behind him, Trunks unsheathed his sword and slid it over his shoulder without a hint of hesitation, leaving an open cut four inches long. “Put your teeth in the wound and bite,” he directed. “We’ll try for a better mating mark later.” For a split second he wondered if that was even going to work, but the moment he felt her teeth sinking into his flesh he groaned in ecstasy and clutched at her tightly.

 Apparently that had worked and counted towards the full mating bond; he felt their minds joining as she sucked gently at the mark her top teeth had inflicted, and he could sense his life force already trying to supplement her own. “That’s it, angel… very, very good…”

                Trunks had been rock-hard and ready to claim her since the moment he’d bitten her, but this was pushing him right to the edge and his beast was in total control as he clamped down on her mark again and moaned loudly as he came, his hand slipping between her legs in an attempt to give her the same level of pleasure. He heard her gasp as he stroked the cotton concealing her core, pressing his fingers against her clit as he moved them over the cloth. “Time for friction,” he growled seductively. “I don’t think I could stop myself if I even wanted to,” he admitted, “so just hold still and enjoy it, _r’sha_.”

                “Trunks?” Her voice came out as a whimper as she felt him touching her where no man had gone before, but before she could speak again his lips had captured hers in a kiss so hot and raw that her toes were curling and she was automatically opening to his questing tongue.

                _Just come for me, angel,_ he groaned softly through the bond, his own body tightening once more as her hands began to timidly explore the rippling muscles of his chest and stomach. He’d been actively resisting his beast up until that moment, but when one of her hands slid down to stroke him so lightly and shyly that he barely felt it, he lost complete and total control of his inner Saiyan. Her panties were gone in that instant, evaporated in one brief pulse of his ki, and Trunks slid down to part her folds and immediately take her clit between his lips.

                Usagi cried out deliriously at the first firm suck, her hips bucking instinctively as her hands gripped his hair and her legs wrapped around his shoulders. The pleasure was white-hot, searing, and so intense that her mind went utterly blank as she came after less than thirty seconds of that treatment, and she was still floating on a tsunami of pleasure as a growling mouth claimed her own aggressively. _Please,_ she thought in a trembling whisper. The princess of the moon felt a need rising up in her as one of his hands traced her still-bleeding mark, but she was clueless as to what it was that she was aching for. _Almost… almost **hurts** …_ she whimpered.

                “I have what you need, _r’sha_ ,” Trunks growled, the sound of his voice almost as low as the deep, rich purr rolling from his chest. “And it’s really going to warm you up.”

                Usagi’s head tipped back and she bared her throat to him, unaware of what a delightfully submissive move that was to the animal lurking inside of him as she hooked a leg around his waist and instinctively raised her hips. She hadn’t a clue what she wanted, but her body knew all too well and was more than happy to take over for her brain. “Please,” she practically sobbed, followed by a soft cry when she felt his teeth bury themselves in her shoulder again.

                “Relax,” he ordered gruffly, sounding more like his father than he’d ever know as he pressed the head of his cock into her slick heat. “Hold still,” he added when she squirmed. When she lifted her hips again he smoothly pinned her beneath him and pressed forward until he felt resistance. Trunks and his beast both groaned happily at the feeling of her intact virginity; he would be the only man she’d ever know, and she’d be _his_. Totally, completely _his_.

                Unable to even process a thought that it might be a good idea to stop, Trunks’s beast bit down on her shoulder a third time before surging forward; even as his beast saw through nothing but a red haze of sheer lust, it was still trying to hurt her as little as possible. “Relax,” he purred before sucking on the mark as she flexed around him, her nails digging into his arm and back as she whimpered at the pain between her thighs. “My first time, too,” he added after two whole minutes of simply kissing and worshiping her gently. “It won’t take me long, so just don’t tense up, _r’sha_ … try to come with me if you can…”

                With that last statement Trunks flexed his hips once and moaned loudly at the sheer tsunami of ecstasy washing through him. His beast was right; he was _not_ going to last long at all, despite the fact that her bite to his shoulder had made him already come once. “I’ll make it up to you, I swear it my angel,” he rasped out hoarsely.

                Usagi managed to relax a little as she felt him stiffen in her arms, softly moaning her name when he spilled his seed inside of her. “It’s alright,” she breathed. Her brain still wasn’t working as it should have been, but she was coherent enough to know what had happened beneath that patchwork quilt.

                Keeping her encased in the warmth of his body, Trunks shuddered and trembled, but not from the cold outside of the blanket. “I’m sorry if I hurt you; my inner Saiyan completely overrode control of my body,” he whispered into her hair as he slowly drew in her scent. He blinked in surprise to hear her chuckle, the vibration of it running through him to arouse him a little despite the fact that he’d just satisfied his lust. “What’s funny, angel?”

                “At least I’m warm.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Usagi wakes up and doesn't remember a thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! I FLEW on this one! For those that didn't get notified on this one because of the way I updated it originally, chapter one is NEW! As is this chapter! But seriously, GO BACK AND READ CHAPTER ONE. CHAPTER ONE IS NEW. THERE ARE THINGS YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND. 
> 
> Now. Proceed to blame Sandreline for all this mess.

                Cracking his eyes open at the feeling of something squirming against him, Trunks used a bit more ki for light and blinked at the bundle of golden hair beneath his chin for a moment as he blushed hotly at the feeling of a very naked woman pressing against him and he recalled everything that had happened before he’d dozed off.

The storm. Finding her. The pull. Warming her as he struggled with his beast. Then the rewarming shock… then marking her. And then…

“Oh gods,” Trunks whispered, his face turning impossibly redder when she looked up at him with barely cracked open blue eyes and he felt himself harden against her despite his best efforts not to. “I, uh… sorry. Whoa, wait, don’t kick off the blanket. Storm’s still going on, angel,” he murmured softly, trying his best not to seem as shy as he felt right then when his mark throbbed in time with the pulsing of his erection. “We need to stay put and stay warm, kay?”

                “Lemme go!” She squeaked softly, struggling a little harder. She felt a pair of muscular arms clutching her tightly and only started to panic, but when a tail looped around her thigh and the tip brushed her folds in the process she went absolutely rigid, trembling in fear. “Why am I naked!?”

                “Dear Kami… you don’t remember, Usa?” Trunks whispered, a touch of hurt in his voice as he felt fear welling up inside of him. She didn’t remember!? Did… did that mean that it wasn’t consensual? “No… no no no, I thought you were in your right mind after you’d bitten me back,” he breathed in horror as he shook his head in disbelief and denial, trembling as he tried not to panic, concentrating on the new mating bond to try his best to soothe her through it. It was new and he’d instinctively used it well initially, but he hadn’t been thinking, he’d been acting, and to be honest, his beast had been mostly in control most of the time.

                Now he was thinking and it was no longer a life or death situation, and Trunks shivered in fear as he cupped her face in his hand to draw it up. “Look at me, angel. Please… please, Usagi. Tell me you remember something… _anything_. Please.”

                As she blinked up at him in the dim lighting of his ki, Usagi saw the panic and heartbreak in his eyes. It was unmistakable, and she knew who he was— _everyone_ that had survived the androids knew who the young Saiyan warrior was, as well as his genius mother, and there wasn’t a person on the planet that wasn’t grateful to them both.

                But to wake up with him under a blanket and have no memory of it… and to find that they were both naked, at that…! “Oh dear sweet gods this is so embarrassing,” Usa whispered, her face as red as his. He was so handsome, even with that look in his eyes, and she’d secretly had a crush on him ever since she’d seen him flying overhead one day a few years ago. That crush had grown as she’d watched him fight and she’d stayed out of sight since her powers were pretty much useless against the androids, and while she’d fantasized about something similar to this, but waking up with him and not remembering anything that happened was quite a shock! “Wh—what happened?”

                Her words only brought more terrified pain to his eyes before they darted away in shame, and Usagi’s chest ached in sympathy as she tried to get over her own embarrassment to focus on his request. He’d asked her what she remembered, and it only took a few moments to realize that something had happened between them beneath that blanket. And it ached faintly between her thighs, almost as if, maybe… “Did… did we have sex?” The moon princess couldn’t help but be mildly surprised at how calm her voice sounded even as she sensed emotions flowing through her that weren’t her own. Guilt and fear, mostly. Embarrassment. And buried deep within all of that dark, awkward turmoil was warmth, desire… and hope.

                It was then that she realized she wasn’t using her powers of empathy and blinked in surprise; she could feel his emotions but didn’t know how, and while it took her nearly a minute to figure it out, Usagi recalled that the Saiyan mating bond would join two people, body and soul. “Sweet Selene,” she whispered as she reached up and felt the circular bite on her shoulder, immediately experiencing a rush of warmth as a result of her fingers tracing it. The Lunarian also felt him stir against her inner thigh immediately and blushed hotly when it dawned on her that touching her mark was telling him without words that she wanted him. “Sorry!” She squeaked as she removed her hand quickly. “I… um… I honestly didn’t mean to… I, um… I remember getting lost,” she answered hurriedly to his question, quickly seeking a change of subject and a means of removing that guilty, heartbroken look from his eyes. It wasn’t just that, either, she could feel his embarrassment turning to the purest shame and disgrace she’d ever felt in her life, and Usagi inwardly panicked as she deduced just why he felt it as she remembered what else he’d said as she’d been trying not to freak out upon waking.

                He’d said he’d thought she was in her right mind after she’d bitten him back… which meant that they’d fully mated. But why would Trunks—someone who was famous for his high sense of honor—mark a woman and pairbond with her when she wasn’t in her right mind? “Did… did I die?” Usagi asked slowly, her voice hushed with only a touch of fear. After all, she’d died many, many times over the last several years, so it wasn’t anything new to her. The crystal always revived her after a few days and impressed upon  her that it wouldn’t let her fall until her mission was complete.

                “Almost,” Trunks answered after swallowing hard, his voice choking as he tried not to freak out, as he tried his best to tell himself that it wasn’t rape, that he’d honest to gods thought she’d been in her right mind. But if Usagi claimed that it was rape, what would he do?

                That answer came easily, at least. He’d offer her his life in recompense, and if she refused to kill him, he’d do it himself. Rape was unforgivable, worse than murder, and if Usagi thought he’d raped her, then he didn’t deserve to live. He would leave the decision up to her, since what he felt was irrelevant. He hadn’t been the one taken, he hadn’t been the one to feel any pain in the process.

                “Stop it,” Usagi ordered sternly. “Stop it right now. I… I can feel you giving up. That… that you want me to kill you?” She asked, her blue eyes wide as she turned his face towards her and forced him to make eye contact. “I… I don’t remember anything after I got inside this little cabin I found and I curled up in a blanket from my subspace. You’ll have to tell me the rest, but you need to know that I don’t blame you for marking me to save my life Trunks.” Her voice had lost that stern note to it as she blushed again, suddenly feeling every inch of warm, muscular flesh pressing to hers, the ache between her thighs growing more pronounced as she thought of what had likely happened beneath the covers. “I, um… I know about Saiyans,” she continued before he could answer. “I’m Lunarian and well… a goddess, basically. It’ll sound stupid but in my first life, my mother and I did an awful lot of trade with your people and I know that after the mating bite, well… the inevitable happens. Right? Did, um… did we make love, Trunks?” She asked breathlessly, looking away as she uttered the question.

                “Yeah, we did.” Trunks hadn’t answered the first time she’d asked because of the wording; he hadn’t known how to answer it since it hadn’t been just sex to him, but now that she’d asked if they’d made love… yes. It had definitely been that to him, even though his time inside of her had been very, very brief. It had also been the most wonderful singular minute of his life, his defeat of the androids and Cell included. Claiming his mate for the first time had been even better than battle… at least while he’d thought she’d wanted it as much as he did. “Usagi… I… I’m sorry,” he rasped.

                “Why?” The question was rhetorical since she _knew_ why, but Usa only shook her head even as she tried for a smile. It was shaky and weak at best, but it was all she could manage through her embarrassment of waking up naked with Earth’s savior. Well, its _other_ savior, anyway… but she hadn’t been _that_ in a long time, not really since Rei had died just before Usagi’s fifteenth birthday, at least. No, she hadn’t even transformed into Sailor Moon since she’d been sixteen, a little over three years ago. She’d fought alone for a year, she’d broken her promise to Rei to stay hidden until the androids were dead, but she hadn’t been able to make a difference.

                She’d saved a few lives, yes, but other than that she’d never been a match for the androids. No, Usagi just wasn’t a high-caliber warrior like Rei had been. She was a healer, and eventually she’d realized that Rei had been right all along; she was the Earth’s brightest hope, but only if the androids didn’t find a way to permanently kill her, first.

                So Sailor Moon was dead, along with all of her Senshi. Killed by the androids, just as Trunks’s mentor had been. Just as most of the planet had been. It hadn’t been hard to fake her own death and let the crystal revive her; she’d only needed to be careful that Android 18 didn’t try to disintegrate her or the crystal in the process.

All that was left was Usagi, who was relentlessly searching for her Senshi’s starseeds with a mostly vain hope of restoring the life on their war-ravaged Earth. There were too many hot zones from nuclear bombs, too many places that were uninhabitable. Too many places where no new life would flourish for thousands of years if someone didn’t fix it.

                Sailor Cosmos could fix it. Yes, Cosmos could fix it all if only—

                “I was looking for something!” Usagi hissed as she suddenly remembered exactly why she’d been on that mountain, in that snowstorm.

                A snowstorm, unlike any other she’d encountered, except during her first life on the planet of—

                “Mercury,” she breathed. “Mercury’s starseed is nearby! _That’s_ why I was here!” A bright smile crossed her face as she remembered the other four starseeds pulsing inside of her in response to one of its missing sisters. Usagi had blindly answered that call, and she’d known as it had gotten colder that she’d found Ami’s starseed, she just had to pinpoint it and take it into her and she’d be over halfway to achieving her goal.

                Disarmed by her bright smile, Trunks’s heart pounded in reaction to it, and it was only after a full minute of silence from him that he remembered a blonde warrior that had fought the androids as best as she could back when it had all started. It hadn’t been _just_ Sailor Moon, though—the mysterious, gorgeous female warrior that had aroused his beast from the moment he’d turned fifteen—it had been eight others, hadn’t it? And they’d all been named after one of the planets of the Solar System.

                Gohan had had a few run-ins with the one they called Sailor Mars, and from what little Trunks knew, they’d been closer than just friends, but she’d refused to mate with him, telling him that her princess was her priority. That after the androids were gone and the world and her princess were safe, she’d give herself to him fully. Gohan had only spoken of her that one time, when he’d returned heartbroken and a young, fourteen-year-old Trunks had asked what was wrong, but his mentor had explained in detail that Sailor Moon, the Princess Serenity, was the world’s one true hope once the androids had been defeated. She could restore the world to what it had once been. She might even be able to resurrect all of those that had died—

                “Are you Sailor Moon?” Trunks blurted out urgently at the very notion that she’d be able to bring everyone back to life. “Are you Princess Serenity!?”

                Gohan had told him that if he ever met the mythical princess, that he was to protect her at all costs. He’d hammered it into his head repeatedly during that one conversation that Princess Serenity was a brighter hope than even achieving Super Saiyan, that without her they would _never_ achieve a planet worth living on ever again.

                Over the years, Trunks had forgotten about her. She’d vanished a year after Gohan had died—he’d heard of Sailor Mars’s death not a month after his mentor’s, and over a year later, just after he’d turned sixteen, Sailor Moon had made her last appearance in a battle. He’d thought her dead when he didn’t receive another report of her or catch a glimpse of blonde hair or a whiff of the scent that made his beast inexplicably purr with pleasure… but he’d honestly wondered if she’d just gone into hiding after the death of her last guardian.

                Apparently she had, since Usagi was nodding slowly, her eyes darting away from his shyly. “I was,” she whispered heartbrokenly in reply to his question. “I’m not much of anything anymore, to be honest. But with their starseeds… I might be able to restore the planet. Maybe. I… I don’t know… even the people that have died. I… I promised Rei that I would try. Sailor Mars,” she added quickly in explanation. “I made a deal with her that if she would stop fighting her love for Gohan, I would stay hidden. That I would wait for you to defeat the androids, and that I would try my best to find the starseeds and bring everyone back.”

                “Wait,” Trunks whispered, “what do you mean about not fighting her love for Gohan?” That question brought about another one of those beautiful, genuine smiles from her, and the prince couldn’t fight the urge to purr with pleasure at the sight of it. “Did Sailor Mars finally…?”

                “Yes,” Usa said without a hint of bitterness mixed in with the joy in her eyes. She missed Rei more than anything in the world and she’d hated the grief that her best friend had obviously endured after Gohan had died… but Rei had known love before the end. Real, true love, and that was the best thing in the universe. Rei had gone into battle on a suicide mission out of grief for the loss of Gohan after mating with him, but for the one month she’d left Usagi all alone, she’d known real happiness. “It was only a half-bond, but they loved each other and they were happy.  I only wish they’d known that happiness a little longer.” Her smile died as she wondered if she’d be able to fix everything. “If… if I can bring them back, they’ll know that happiness again. That’s why I keep searching. I promised Rei that I would. I broke my promise not to fight, but I’ll never break my promise to keep looking for the starseeds.”

                That reminded Trunks of their current predicament, and he blushed as he wiped a few tears that had escaped her eyes as tried to ignore how wonderfully perfect she felt pressing against him. “So, um… Sailor Mercury died somewhere near here?” A little nod was his answer. “Why is her starseed trying to kill you?”

                “Phhht…” Usagi couldn’t help but giggle and shake her head at that, and knew that she’d have to tell him all about how she’d finally gotten Sailor Jupiter’s starseed while dodging lightning and cowering from the thunderclaps. “I have to be worthy. I think. I honestly don’t know why their starseeds do this sort of thing every time. Either because they’re trying to lead me to them, or because they’re testing me. Trying to make me stronger, maybe. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter anyway,” she continued softly, her cheeks heating up again to match his. “You saved my life, so if I can convince the storm to die down a little, I can keep looking for her starseed. And Trunks… it’s alright,” Usa added shyly. “I know you wouldn’t have made love to me unless you thought I wanted it. Heck… I probably did, to be honest. I just don’t remember it. Um… was it nice? I’ve always wondered if it was as nice as Mako and Mina said it was.”

                Her curiosity and the way she looked up at him bashfully through her lashes nearly made Trunks’s beast slip from its leash, but the half-Saiyan managed to keep it in check as he sighed and shrugged, resting his forehead against hers as he fought against the desire to kiss her. “It was nicer for me than it was for you, to be honest,” he admitted, “but it was my first time, too.” Admitting that brought another bright blush to his face and he shrugged again. “I was glad I made you come the one time, if we’re being fair, since I didn’t really know what I was doing.”

                No, it had all been pure instinct, just as marking her to keep her from dying had been. “You’re really going to forgive me so easily? I… I mean… I only…”

                “No, I _already_ forgave you,” she corrected him with a shy smile. “And yes, it’s that easy.” Sure, her virginity was gone and she was apparently married to a man she didn’t know except for the stories she knew about him, but there was nothing she could do to change it—and one thing she’d definitely learned over the years was that there was no point in whining over things you couldn’t change. You just had to keep going and keep hoping. “It’s alright. I mean, it’s not like my virginity’s something I’ll actually miss, not like if I’d lost my shoes or something. You know? I just wish I could remember it, that’s all.”

                He could feel her curiosity and longing to know what had happened, and Trunks concentrated on the new bond, shutting his eyes to focus as he tried his best to throw it wide open. “It’s so new to me that I really don’t know what I’m doing,” he confessed, “but I can try to show you if you want? Through the bond, I mean!” he added hurriedly when she turned beet red and looked up at him owlishly. “I mean, I… uh… I’d love to _show_ you, but, well… damn it,” he huffed awkwardly.

                Unable to stop herself, Usagi giggled despite it all, her arms tightening around him as she buried her face in his chest and laughed harder than she had in a very long time. “Did you ever think your first time would be this awkward!?” She asked between laughs. “I know I didn’t!”

                Her good humor about the whole thing was like a healing balm to the thread of guilt still running through him, and Trunks chuckled warmly as he ran his fingers through her soft blonde hair and savored the feeling of her arm around him and her curves pressing tightly to him. She was perfect, simple as that. “No,” he snickered, “no I didn’t.” Once the laughter had died down and she was looking up at him again in the dim light from his ki, Trunks’s smile softened as his hands continued to gently trail through her hair and absently, occasionally run up and down her spine. “I didn’t think I’d ever have a first time, to be honest.”

                “Neither did I,” Usa answered truthfully, suddenly very glad that she’d given Earth’s hero a taste of happiness. “I can’t remember it, but… I’m happy that it made you happy.” The princess felt a strange sensation in her mind then—almost like someone was gently nudging her with their elbow—and blinked in confused surprise. It was almost how it felt whenever Rei had tried to telepathically get her attention in the past.

                “Close your eyes and look,” Trunks said softly. “I don’t know how much I can show you or even if I can, but I can try.”

                Usagi did as he told her and couldn’t stop a smile from blooming when she discovered that yes, the bond was very, very similar to how she and Rei had communicated. It was more than that, too, but the telepathic part of it was a lot like how they’d talked without speaking aloud, and because of her prior experience with Sailor Mars, she didn’t have a problem picking up on what he was trying to send her.

                Images of him finding her, snippets of conversation, clips in her mind almost like video footage of how he’d cut his shoulder to help her mark him when she was too weak to bite down. And then… “Oh,” Usagi breathed, opening her eyes to look up at him as she trembled from the desire running through her. It was partially his desire that she felt as he’d tried to focus on every detail of how they’d mated, but Usa couldn’t deny that a lot of it was her own. “Trunks?” She asked hesitantly.

                “Yeah, angel,” he replied hoarsely as he reined in his beast and reminded it that she’d forgiven him once but might not do so again if he was too quick to jump the gun. He could smell her strong arousal—in such close quarters it was impossible to ignore—but unless she asked him to, he’d do his best not to even touch her in a way that wasn’t platonic.

                “Will… will it hurt again? Mako always said it only hurt the first time, but…” When he didn’t answer, Usagi looked up at him to discover his eyes dark with desire, and she gnawed on her lower lip nervously as she shut her eyes and saw clearly through the mating bond that he was determined not to do anything that might offend her. He wanted to give her time to get used to it all and to decide on her own if she wanted him; pull or no pull, whether he ever made love to her again or not was her call. “Oh,” she said again, surprised by that. “Really? I mean, _never_ doing it again seems a little drastic, don’t you think?”

                Her wide-eyed innocence and acceptance of him was nothing short of amazing to Trunks, but before he could say anything, he felt her lips pressing to his in a shy, chaste kiss, her soft fingers tracing a shiver-inducing pattern near the base of his tail. “Usa,” he sighed happily, humming in approval when he felt the tip of her tongue briefly touch his lower lip. Trunks returned the kiss, but only for a moment; she broke it before he could do more than purr and caress her tongue with his in one soft stroke.

                “Oh wow,” she murmured, blushing at the heat thrumming through her and the pulsing of his arousal against her inner thigh. “That was like the best kiss ever. Can I count that as the first one since I can’t remember the others?” She wondered aloud.

                “You can do _anything_ you want,” Trunks blurted out before he could think better of it, the words laced with the lust running through him as he tried to breathe and fight the urge to kiss her again. It wasn’t easy with her lips hovering only an inch from his, and when her fingers found his tail and stroked their way through the thick fur, he let loose a shaky groan as he fought down his beast. “Shit… except for that,” he amended, burying his face in her hair and taking long, deep breaths in an attempt to calm his libido. “Not the tail, ok?”

                “Sorry,” Usagi whispered in embarrassment as she moved her fingertips up his spine soothingly, making a mental note not to mess with his tail unless she wanted him inside of her. Truth be told, though… she did. And they’d already made love once, so why not do it again? At least she’d be able to remember it this time.

                A long silence fell between them as Usagi thought about it and Trunks tried his best to get a handle on his desire, and it was finally broken when Usa suddenly stroked his tail again and shifted so that her lips were pressing to his once more. “Just go slow?” She asked when she broke the kiss to find him staring at her in amazement.

                “You’re sure?” Trunks whispered as he trembled against her and momentarily resisted when she tugged at him in a clear request for him to roll on top of her. “Usa, I can wait if you want me to, I really can.”

                She didn’t doubt that at all, his willpower was nothing short of amazing to her since she could feel his beast writhing inside of him, crying out with need, genuinely begging to be let loose to claim his mate again and please her. “I know you can, but… doesn’t it seem a little ridiculous? I mean, we’re stuck under this stupid blanket until I can figure out how to get Ami’s starseed without freezing to death. Being revived by my crystal after freezing kind of sucks, to be honest. The waking part’s really uncomfortable. Stiff limbs and all that, sometimes it takes a couple weeks… it’s a pain.”

                “I can warm you with my ki,” he offered as he ignored his beast’s pleas to take her offer and just lose himself inside of her for an hour.

                “No, Trunks. It’s my mission,” Usagi answered mournfully. It was tempting to allow him to help her, but she couldn’t. It had to be her, and only her. “If I’m not strong enough to get to Ami’s starseed on my own, then I’m not strong enough to revive the Earth. It has to be just me. I can’t have help. Even Rei couldn’t help me get to the first three I found, and trust me, Jupiter’s wasn’t easy since I’m terrified of thunderstorms. So… while we’re stuck here…?” She asked softly, her hand trailing between them to stroke his rigid cock, her fingers timid even when he gasped in ecstasy and thrust into them. “Why bother fighting it when it’s uncomfortable for both of us?”

                “I’m afraid I’ll hurt you,” Trunks confessed even as he surrendered and his beast let loose a happy, seductive purr meant only for his mate. When she only giggled at that and kissed him, he lost any resistance he had left and returned it ardently, trying his best to keep it slow even as his hunger for her seeped into it and he finally answered the tugging of her hands by rolling on top of her.

                “I’ll tell you… if you do,” Usagi promised between kisses, shivering with pleasure at the heat rolling through her from something as simple as a kiss, a soft moan escaping her when a calloused hand cupped her breast and he thumbed the nipple into a hard peak. “Oh!” She cried quietly when he suddenly broke away to latch onto her breast with his mouth, the hot suckling building the hot ache between her thighs exponentially.

                “Is it nice?” He purred, remembering her question from earlier, if it had been nice the first time.

                “Better than nice,” Usa whispered just as he moved to the other breast and she laced her fingers in his hair to hold him to her, savoring the warmth running through her. “It’s… mmm… lovely, Trunks.”

                “Wish we had a bed, _that_ would be lovely,” the prince chuckled when he released her nipple and drug his lips down her stomach, a blast of frigid air seeping under the blanket when he shifted in order to get to the sweet prize between her legs. “You thought that this was awfully lovely, too, angel,” Trunks informed her as he buried his tongue in her folds and tried to remember what he’d instinctively done the first time to make her come so quickly, but her immediate moan of pleasure and the way she clutched at him made it hard to think.

                He didn’t need to think about it as far as Usagi was concerned—she was in heaven as he pushed his tongue into her and his rough hands gripped her hips gently to hold her to him when she squirmed. “Sl—slow down,” she whimpered when he growled something she didn’t understand and she winced at the feeling of his fingers stretching her and pushing deep. “Hurts a little,” Usa whispered when he stopped and looked up at her, clearly waiting for her to explain or ask him to stop altogether. “Just… just go slow. I’m sore from the first time, I think.”

                “Sorry,” Trunks murmured, withdrawing his fingers carefully as he kissed her inner thigh tenderly. “Relax… that’s it,” he continued, pushing one finger into her this time instead of two, watching her face for any sign that he was hurting her. “Good,” he praised when she hummed in approval and smiled down at him, her hazy blue eyes locked to his. “Let’s hope I can get you wet enough, because if it’s only going to hurt you, I won’t make love to you. At least not fully,” he added when he felt a clear wave of disappointment from her end of the bond. Even with his inexperience with the bond, he’d still felt that loud and clear, and it was plain that she really, truly wanted him. “We’ll try,” he amended gently before parting her folds with his tongue once more and dragging it slowly over her clit, savoring her sweet, pleased moan and the way she gripped his hair.

                “Oh… just like that,” Usagi sighed happily when he started hooking his finger inwards in time with every gentle stroke of his tongue. “I like that _a lot_.” The warmth inside of her was building and growing and spreading, and just as she’d asked, he was keeping his motions slow, even when he suddenly latched onto her clit as he’d done to her nipple and began to suckle her gently.

                That drug a loud moan of approval from her, and the Lunarian gripped him tightly with her thighs when the motion of his finger suddenly stopped… only for him to add another and push it into her slowly. It still hurt just a tiny bit, but the pleasure it brought outweighed the pain and she rocked into him for more when he hooked them both inside of her and drug his tongue over her aching nub as he sucked down. “Oh… oh gods… yes, Trunks!” Usa whimpered when he repeated the action, tensing beneath him and trembling as she teetered on the edge of climax. “I’m gonna come,” she barely whispered as she felt herself spiraling up and pleasure began to flood every sense. “Don’t stop… please don’t stop…”

                To tell her he wouldn’t stop would require him to stop, so Trunks only purred louder in response, his free hand giving her hip a squeeze as he continued to suckle her slowly and drag his tongue over her clit in time with the gentle movements of his fingers. _Come for me, angel,_ he begged when he remembered the mating bond. _I won’t stop. Come for me. Come for me and I’ll make love to you._

His voice was the tipping point that set her off, and Usagi shook from the force of it as she whimpered loudly just before tumbling over the edge. “ _Trunks_ ,” she moaned as she surrendered to it all and came, the waves of pleasure rolling through her in a huge tsunami of rapture, her hips bucking once before she stiffened and panted for air when it didn’t end right away and he only continued to suck and rock his fingers. “Mmm! Please!” Usa finally squeaked when it became too much, shaking beneath the intensity of too much pleasure for too long.

                Trunks released her then, growling happily as he slid his fingers out of her and lapped at the results of his handiwork. “You taste so good,” he mumbled as she laid there basking in the afterglow and allowed him to lick the proof of her pleasure from her inner thighs.

                “That felt so good,” she countered softly, slurring her words, her eyes only half open and glazed with desire and satisfaction. “Come here,” Usagi whispered when he nibbled at her hip, her fingers tugging gently at his shoulders. “I want to know what the rest of it’s like. If it’s as good as that was.”

                “It wasn’t last time, not for you,” Trunks admitted with a blush as he complied and kissed his way back up, nuzzling her shoulder once he was fully pressing to her once more. “But maybe this time will be different.” He hoped so, anyway. “Wrap your legs around my waist, sweetheart. Good… now relax.”

                The first time he’d had her, Trunks hadn’t been quite so careful because he’d been running on pure instinct, but this second time around he was as gentle as possible, his beast relaxing at the knowledge that Trunks wasn’t going to stop and that Usagi wanted him inside of her. He couldn’t contain a low groan of pleasure as he eased into her and worshipped her mark with his lips and tongue, sinking his teeth into it when she winced at his invasion, pushing deeper when she moaned and clutched at him in response to the bite. “You feel so fucking good,” he whispered shakily once he’d released her shoulder and rested his forehead to hers, lying still inside of her to give her time to adjust. “Am I hurting you?” He asked when she didn’t reply, his voice just as quiet as before.

                “I don’t want you to stop,” Usagi finally breathed once she could find her voice. She felt so full that it was hard to think of anything except how big he was and how uncomfortable he felt inside of her, but at the same time there was a hint of the warmth she’d felt as a result of his fingers hooking forward in time with his mouth. It also felt _right_ despite the discomfort, and as she blushed and looked into his eyes, she knew she didn’t want him to stop. No, even if she didn’t get any pleasure from the actual act of sex, there would be pleasure in giving it, in returning the ecstasy he’d given her only minutes ago. As long as it didn’t hurt any more than it already did, Usagi knew she’d be fine; she’d endured a lot more pain through the years of war than the mild ache she felt from an act of love.

“I’m ok, really, I am,” she assured him with a smile when he still wouldn’t move. “Trunks, this is _nothing_ compared to some of the wounds I’ve gotten from the androids. Seriously, look,” she pressed, taking his hand to press it to a puckered, faint scar near her heart. “Eighteen, the first time I met her. She got mad because I told her that at least I was a natural blonde.”

                At that, Trunks couldn’t stop himself from laughing and shook his head before kissing her with more than a hint of playfulness to it. “You’ve got balls.”

                “Heh, thanks. I cried my head off about the wound once we got to safety, but Mako said the same. Ami told me that the next time I wanted to be a smartass, that I shouldn’t bite off more than I can chew. Mina thought it was funny as hell, though. At least once I was safe,” Usagi whispered with pride before displaying those balls by rolling her hips against his, gasping at a tiny flutter of pleasure deep inside of her. “So trust me, Trunks, I’m fine,” she promised as she rose up to kiss him. “Make love to me. I want you to.”

                Trunks wasn’t going to argue anymore and nodded slightly as he carefully withdrew a couple inches and slid back in, shivering at the sound of a gasp of pleasure from her and how close he already was to coming. “Shit, I won’t last long. Sorry, angel,” he sighed.

                “It’s ok. Just kiss me,” Usagi breathed as she nudged his hips with hers again and pulled him down to her. She didn’t have to ask twice; he kissed her immediately and she moaned softly into it and the gentle dueling of lips and tongues, joined by the movement of him inside of her, every thrust just as gentle and tender as the kiss. _That feels good,_ she whispered through the bond after a minute, inwardly smiling at his self-control and how hard he was trying not to erupt inside of her.

                “I—I’m close,” he stuttered between kisses before breaking it to bury his face in her hair to breathe in her scent in an effort to calm himself down. “F—fuck… Usagi, you feel so good. You don’t understand… I had the biggest crush on Sailor Moon when I was fifteen.”

That babbled confession brought a grin to Usagi’s face and she turned her head to kiss him, both amused and flattered that Earth’s hero had probably used her in various naughty teenager fantasies when he’d been growing up. That was fine by her, since she was guilty of doing the same for years! “Don’t stop, it’s ok if you come, Trunks,” she assured him as she bent her head to his mark to kiss it, clinging to him when he bucked in her arms in reaction and groaned her name.

“Come with me,” he insisted hotly, finding her mark as well and clamping down on it to suck, letting loose a happy growl, his purr getting loud when she cried out softly and rolled her hips into his for more. _That’s it, angel. Come for me._

His mouth sucking at her mark was turning the nice feeling between her legs into something sensational, and Usagi could only nod as she found herself being swept away by the pleasure, holding onto him tightly. It was when she felt a prodding through the bond a few moments later that she followed it and sunk her teeth into his mark, and her muffled yell under the blanket was joined by his as they came together from the mutual bite, both of them shaking hard from the force of the climax.

“Nice enough… for you?” Trunks finally panted into her hair.

“Heh… yuuuuuup,” Usagi replied, giggling into his shoulder. “ _And_ it gave me an idea to get out of here with Ami’s starseed.” When he looked at her groggily and lifted an eyebrow, she shrugged. “What? Too tired? That’s ok, I have to do it on my own anyway, remember? You stay here and—“

“No,” Trunks grumped, frowning deeply as he rolled them onto their sides and gave her the Vegeta-patented ‘I-want-it-and-I’m-gonna-get-it-because-I’m-stronger-than-you’ look.

Her mood incredibly lightened by the lovemaking, and filled more energy than she’d had in years, Usagi only grinned at that look and laughed. “Oooo, so serious! Why so pouty, hm? Let me guess, the Saiyan is used to getting his way,” she teased, only to giggle when he crushed his lips to her and growled, nipping at her lower lip when she tried to get away.

“Stop picking on me,” he finally grumbled. “I’m sleepy. I’m cranky when I’m sleepy. How _you_ can be so ready to get up and run a marathon is beyond me.”

“If I knew that making love would turn you this surly, I wouldn’t have offered,” she continued to tease, laughing when he huffed and tickled her ribs, then nipped at her mark. “Look, no! Don’t tickle, please!” She squealed when he laughed into her shoulder and really started to get her ticklish spots, making her squirm against him. “Ah! Hahahaha! Truuunks! Seriously, I have a great idea but it won’t last horribly long!” She shrieked when he continued. “I’m warm! I’m really, _really_ warm! Inside and out! I can get there if I hurry!”

He stopped then and regarded her seriously, any light-heartedness wiped from his face and his mind as he considered the consequences. “And what if you can’t make it?”

“Then you predictably come up the mountain, rushing to save my freezing ass, and then you get to have fun warming me up again?” Usagi deduced, turning it into a question as she shrugged. “Really, I don’t think I have very far left to go, and I was freezing when I got here. Now I’m as warm as I was at the bottom when I started climbing, so…” She shrugged again, not quite sure why he couldn’t see the logic of it. She didn’t have common sense moments like this often, damn it! “Come on, you can even follow me if you want, as long as you promise _not_ to help me unless I ask for it.”

“Fine,” he sighed as he fished around behind him for his stuff, only to stop and regard her with that look again. “You’ll let me warm you while we dress, at least.”

“Fine,” Usagi sighed in a perfect imitation of how he had, giggling again when he grunted in annoyance and flipped the blanket back. It wasn’t cold though; Trunks had expanded his ki around them and it shimmered in the air as the Lunarian grabbed her clothes and dragged them on in the near-dark. “Damn… it’s dawn. You mean I’ve been up here for two days already?” She commented as she pulled extra socks from her subspace and every layer of clothing she could manage reasonably. “Should’ve done this the last time instead of whining that it was too hot at the base over a week ago.”

“You’ve been climbing this mountain for over a week?” Trunks asked in disbelief.

“I’m a bit of a wimp,” Usagi admitted, her smile dying as her eyes darted to the floor. “Powered up, I’m not too shabby, but in this body I’m a sissy.”

“Why not transform?” Trunks huffed. “Seriously, wouldn’t that be easier?”

“I promised Rei,” Usagi murmured, “and I broke that promise after she died… and I regretted it. No fighting. No transforming. I can use the starseeds I have to find the others, so that does make it a little easier, but I can’t transform until I have them all. You um… did you know the nature of Rei’s gift?”

“Fire. And Gohan said she was psychic when he came back to Capsule Corp and claimed that they didn’t mate… wait. But they did. What… why would Gohan lie to me? I don’t understand. Gohan _never_ lied to me,” Trunks whispered, feeling slightly betrayed by his mentor.

“The one time I saw Rei after they mated, she told me that she told Gohan never to tell you. That it was important and would effect future events. That something really, really big was supposed to happen after the androids were gone and… oh.” Usagi’s blue eyes widened at that, and she waved her hands at Trunks when he opened his mouth to speak.

“Wait. Wait!” There were other pieces of a big puzzle in her head that she was putting together, snippets of remember conversation when Rei was tired—the only time she usually slipped up and revealed something she shouldn’t have—along with what she knew. “Oh… oh, _wow_ ,” Usagi finally whispered, blushing hotly as she stared at Trunks in the early dawn light. “Oh wow. Oh _shit_.”

Turning her head to the ceiling, Usagi narrowed her eyes and blew a raspberry. “Rei, you bitch! You could have told me or something! Just a _hint_ , damn you!”

Only there had been hints in the past and Usagi just hadn’t picked up on them. Quiet conversations about the Saiyans… and a few instances when Rei had smiled mysteriously whenever Usagi had mentioned how hot Trunks Briefs was.

“What?” Trunks asked as he suspected just what she was thinking.

“SHE KNEW!” Usagi exploded as she jumped up and grabbed her sweater to put it on over all of her layers, then added mittens and a hat. “That fire-breathing bitch KNEW that this was going to happen and I swear on my mother’s name that I’m going to shit kick her from here back to Japan once she’s alive again! ARGH! I hate it when she does ‘the thing!’ Where she knows what’s going to happen but won’t breathe a word about it to anyone because of the butterfly effect thingy that she explained to me that all the time and I still don’t get it but oh dear gods I’m really going to _kick the crap out of her_!”

She continued to rage in run-on sentences while Trunks just stared at her and grinned—honestly, he felt the exact same about Gohan right then. Gohan would have known through the bond, and Gohan hadn’t told him. “Looks like we’re in the same boat, angel,” he finally chuckled as he finished pulling on his boots and strapped his sword to his back. “Now come on, stop screaming at your dead friend for five minutes—trust me, I’ve done it a lot over the years and it doesn’t really help anything.”

“Fine!” Usagi snapped as she let her rage fuel the heat under her skin. She didn’t have Rei’s starseed yet because it was in a hot zone, but she sure felt like there was an inferno under her skin. “Let’s get to Ami. Stop warming me when we get outside, ok?”

“You know… you’re cute when you’re all pissed off?” Trunks asked. It was his turn to tease her, and he flashed her his best panty-dropping grin when she only rolled her eyes and sputtered something in Lunarian at him. He was pretty sure that it wasn’t a compliment. “Aw… who’s the surly one, now?”

“I am,” Usagi sputtered, turning her head to the sky once they were out and shouting in Lunarian at Rei. “And I hope you heard every word of that!” She finished as she stomped through the snow and the near-whiteout conditions. “He’s awesome but I don’t like my life being played with like that and you know it!” She continued. “Especially my love life! Meddling big ass… doody head!”

Trunks erupted with laughter at that and couldn’t contain it when Usagi glared at him. “N—No! I… I ran out of insults one time too, it’s ok!” He cackled as he slung a companionable arm over her shoulder. “I screamed at Gohan after he died, and finally ended it on something like ‘fuzzy-headed poo-poo brain,’ and I’m pretty sure now that he thought it was hilarious. Got it out of my system, though. I was mad, too. Really, really mad,” he recalled.

“He didn’t take me with him,” Trunks continued when Usagi waved him off in a reminder that he couldn’t warm her. She wasn’t shivering though, so he let it go. “If he’d just taken me with him—“

“Rei told him not to,” Usagi sighed after debating for a moment whether or not to just tell him. “No, you need to know,” she muttered to herself before stopping and closing her eyes, waving him off again. “No, don’t. I’m trying to get a bearing on Ami.”

Trunks wasn’t sure whether to comment on their current line of conversation when she suddenly glowed a light orange, then sea-green, then a blackish-purple, and finally… summer green. The last one even crackled the air a bit with discharged electricity, and the Saiyan wasn’t sure what to do except follow her when her eyes snapped open with a faraway look in them and she turned and started slogging through the snow to their right. “Usa?” He finally asked.

“Shh… no talking. I can hear her,” Usagi whispered. She could hear it… not just the starseed, but all of its memories, and the sound of Ami laughing made Usagi’s next breath catch in her throat. “She’s here,” Usa choked out through tears. “Just… just don’t help me. Be ready to take cover if there’s a lot of ice.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goddamn I'm ROLLING on this shit, I can't get it out of my head! Yall don't even wanna know how fast I'm typing right now, it's unreal, I'm so focused! ENJOY!

                “I was close. So close,” Usagi whispered as she hit her knees in the snow.

                It didn’t take the bond to know that she was crying, and Trunks hesitated mid-step as he fought the urge to go to her, to give her some form of comfort. She was crying so hard right in front of him, not quite to hysterics but close as she dug into the snow with her mittened hands.

                It was only when she took the gloves off and he watched her nailbeds turn blue in the low lighting through the blizzard that Trunks growled softly and really fought his beast. “No,” Usagi told him without looking. “No, don’t.” She was still digging in the snow, she could feel it. “Can’t you hear her!? She’s here, I can hear her!” Usa whispered as she continued to cry, her tears freezing before they hit the snow, her hands already numb without protection.

                When she’d dug down several feet and out of sight in the loose powder, Trunks gave in enough and hovered over the hole, keeping an eye on her, his eyes widening in surprise when Usagi revealed a block of ice… or was that crystal?

                Inside of it was a woman with short blue hair, both of her hands extended out of the shapeless block. In one was… another person’s hand? “Holy shit,” Trunks breathed, fighting down the urge to help her dig. In the other hand was a pen or wand of some kind.

                And in the center of the ice, glowing right in front of the frozen Senshi, was a bright, blue star of light. “Is that it?”

                “Yes,” Usagi answered as she eyed the frozen hand clasped in Ami’s. It was massive, engulfing the entire thing, but the Lunarian ignored her strong sense of curiosity in favor of turning back to her first Senshi, her first real friend growing up that wasn’t Naru. “Ami-chan,” she breathed, finally daring to touch the chunk of clear ice, gasping when her hand froze to it and was immediately engulfed. “No!” She shouted up at Trunks, waving him away with her other hand. “Don’t!”

                “You’d better be sure about this!” Trunks insisted as he unsheathed his sword and prepared to swoop down and cut her free if necessary. He’d stay put for now as she’d ordered, but as the ice crept up her arm and quickly engulfed the shoulder he’d marked, he shivered and knew it would be maybe a minute before he disobeyed her orders. “You need to think of something and fast, Usagi!”

                “Neptune’s waters,” Usagi stated under her breath. This had been her plan from the beginning, to use the warmth of the ocean against the freezing cold of Artic seas and snowstorms, but the princess only began to shake from the cold as she glowed with Neptune’s light. “Please… please… winds of Uranus, please… help me…”

                When she glowed orange instead and the wind kicked up substantially, Trunks lost sight of her, and he flew against the gale-force winds for over two minutes before he could find her again… fully encased in ice.

“USAGI! FUCK! FIGHT IT!” He screamed when the winds buffeted him about once more and he couldn’t reach her to shatter the ice surrounding her. “FIGHT IT! FUCKING FIGHT IT!” He shouted again, his voice carried away on the winds. Trunks focused through the bond then, feeling her—still alive, still hanging on and struggling—and pushed his thoughts through to her. _I SWEAR IF YOU DIE I WILL NEVER FUCKING FORGIVE YOU._

What happened next occurred so quickly that Trunks wasn’t even sure what was going on until after he’d been knocked out of the sky like a sack of rocks and panted for air in the snow.

Usagi hadn’t just answered him… she’d latched on. And then slapped him at the same time, her mind colliding with his roughly, hard enough to knock him unconscious for a handful of seconds and send him flying. And he couldn’t find her anywhere, couldn’t see her through the snow, and Trunks shivered as he reactivated his ki to warm himself, only to have it barely respond. “What the hell?” He croaked, his mouth filling with snow as he struggled to his feet and homed in on Usagi through the bond… which she was still latching onto him tightly with, her mind and soul hugging his so tightly that Trunks briefly thought of it as a death-hug.

Sharing his mind so closely with her so soon was disorienting at best, violating and crushing at worst, and Trunks groaned and shivered as he tried to power up again. _Usa… Usa, you’re… damn it…_ No, he couldn’t complain, he knew _exactly_ why she was doing it. She was drawing from his life force and his ki, making it her own out of the pure, raw need to fight for her life. _Take it,_ he finally whispered, hitting his knees beside the hole she’d dug. _Take it and fight, angel. Just warm me when you’re done,_ he added with a flicker of a smile that he made sure she could feel.

_thank you_

He felt more than heard her gratitude, and Trunks closed his eyes and focused inward, trying his best to meditate as Gohan had taught him when he was younger, blocking out the cold, the snow, and the harsh wind trying to knock him over. Even when the crackling of lightning and a boom of thunder rang out, Trunks only briefly thought of avalanches before going down deep in his mind, hoping to at least get a glimpse of the fight if he couldn’t participate.

Usagi batted away his fleeting thought that she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen when she felt him find his way through the darkness to her, but his presence filled her with warmth and she couldn’t help but latch on even harder to that heat as she fought with all her strength against the ice consuming her from the outside in.

She was shivering as she railed against it with the strength of the four starseeds she possessed, her wings trembling in the cold, the crescent on her forehead blazing from the output of power as she began to draw on Trunks’s ki as well.

And he possessed the strength of a Super Saiyan… and realized it almost too late, drawing deep on his inner might and ascending rapidly as he told Usagi to take everything she needed, even if it killed him.

Usagi wasn’t about to turn it down since the power was hers to use on her own, without his help, and she was suddenly hot, burning up from the inside out, and she felt… wet. Soaked from head to toe, and her clothing—

Broken from the ice, Usagi shot out of her mind and into the real world, shattering it around her and setting her mouth in a firm line as she pressed her warm, pink hands to the block surrounding Ami. “I will not die on this mountain, and you’re not taking Trunks with you,” she hissed. “I need this power to bring you back, so don’t you dare deny it to me, Ami-chan.”

The block cracked at that, then shimmered into snow around the Senshi of Mercury, and Usagi barely contained a sob at the sight of a smile on Ami’s face. “Ami-chan,” she breathed as she took the starseed, sucking in a great breath of air when it entered her and filled her with its power, then nestled itself comfortably amongst Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune and Saturn. “Ami… thank you. I swear, I won’t waste your gift… I need it to get to Rei, after all. It’ll honestly be the biggest help I could have to get to her. Thank you.”

“We should bury her,” came a hoarse whisper from behind.

“No… no, we leave her here. She’ll revive with everyone else when the time comes, and… and I can’t bring myself to put her in the ground, Trunks. I can’t,” Usagi insisted. “And…” She turned to him then and gave him a sad smile, her face covered in hot tears. “Thank you. You didn’t have to let me take your strength, but I appreciate it.”

“And I thought I couldn’t help you,” he chuckled wearily as he flopped back into the snow at the top of the hole. “Didn’t we just cheat?”

“No, actually,” Usa replied softly. “I just can’t transform. I can use anything at my disposal, but no one can directly help me. And you didn’t. I drew it from you, even if it was willingly given. The fact that I even _could_ means that I did it on my own,” she explained. She blushed then and looked up at him over the edge of the hole. “Um… do you need me to warm you up?”

“Heh… no, sweetheart, right now I need a nap. That was as tough as fighting Eighteen before I ascended.” He felt a kiss on his forehead then, and Trunks cracked open his eyes to find her beside him, smiling at him gently.

“Thanks, babe,” Usa murmured before returning to the hole. “You ok for a moment? I… I probably shouldn’t pry, but… I have to know who this hand belongs to. As far as I knew, Ami was holing up by herself, and well… she’ll probably kill me for this when she wakes up but I want to know. It’s obviously some guy’s hand, and I never she knew she had a boyfriend, either.”

“How do you know it’s her boyfriend?” Trunks asked, his curiosity piqued as he rolled over the edge and landed on one knee. “It couldn’t just be a friend?”

“There’s a ring on Ami’s finger that wasn’t there before… and Ami wasn’t one for frivolous jewelry. Just her earrings, maybe a necklace. She never wore rings,” Usagi informed him as she started digging sideways towards the likely direction of Ami’s boyfriend’s frozen head.

What she revealed was a massive bald dome, closed eyes, and finally a mustachioed mouth, and Usagi stopped digging and left him alone at that, sighing sadly at the little smile on his face. It matched Ami’s, and she could just barely make out a glint of gold on the man’s hand from that angle. “They died together… they’ll wake together,” she whispered, bowing her head respectfully before covering him back up to keep him frozen. Ami wouldn’t decompose, but this mystery man, he would, now that Mercury’s starseed had been taken from the immediate area.

“You didn’t recognize him?” Trunks inquired. Something had tickled his memory at the sight of what had to be a giant of a man beneath the snow, and he was sure that if they kept digging, he’d remember something vital. He might have even know the man at some point and just couldn’t place him. Probably from a survivor’s shelter or something, who knew.

Nah, he wouldn’t disrespect the dead like that. Better to let him lie, now that they’d seen his face and neither of them knew who he was. “If I’d known about Gohan and Rei, I would’ve already put him with her,” Trunks sighed sadly. “They should be together, too.”

Usagi frowned deeply at that and stared at the joined hands lying in the snow for a long time, and it was only Trunks calling her name gently that snapped her out of it. “Sorry… did you say something?”

“I asked if you were ok.”

She tried to return his gentle smile, but it was weak, and the worry in his eyes made her shrug slightly as she stared at Ami’s and her mystery boyfriend’s hands. “I can bring him to her,” she whispered, shivering even though she still felt exceedingly warm. “But… I’d have to transform. I’d have to transform to restore him to what he was before, um… you know. Well, it’s been years, Trunks, so he’ll have…”

“Yeah, I know.” Trunks wasn’t a stranger to death at all, but he couldn’t help but appreciate Usagi’s desire to respect his friend enough to not say that he’d rotted to the core by now. “I buried him not far from Capsule Corp. It seems weird to dig him up, but… wait. No. You can’t transform, Rei told you not to.”

Choking out a long growl of frustration, Usagi grabbed a chunk of ice and hurled it at the wall of snow in frustration. “Don’t remind me! It wouldn’t be so damned hard if I could! But I… I just… you know what!? Fuck it!” She normally didn’t swear like that, not like Mako and Mina had, but she was mad. Furious even. “I won’t deny Rei and Gohan the same that Ami has right now. I won’t! So… I dunno! Just… just fly me to where he is, then where she is, and then we’ll—“

“We should have a plan first,” Trunks interrupted. “That’s a hot zone, Usagi. Sailor Mars set off a lot of nukes with that firestorm and it’s _still_ burning years later. There was a coal vein beneath it, according to Mom. We should go back to Capsule Corp and get some maps and make a game plan of some kind. The world can wait a few extra days.”

Sagging in defeat, Usagi nodded as the fury in her eyes went out, and she gazed down at the joined hands one last time before laying her own hand on top of them and giving them a squeeze. “I love you, Ami-chan. I’ll see you again soon,” she murmured with tears in her eyes, even though she managed a shaky smile after a moment. “And when I do… I’m going to find out who it is that you married. Especially without telling me!”

“Come on,” Trunks coaxed gently, offering her his hand when she emerged near the top of the hole, grasping it in his to swing her up and out. “There we go. And um… when we get to my home… I kind of forgot…”

Blushing hotly, Usagi waved a hand at him, reading his surface thoughts since she was still working her way up out of the depths of his mind. “Um… yeah. Hopefully your mom isn’t like my father,” she gulped. “Um… she’s not, is she?”

“No? I don’t think so, anyway,” Trunks murmured. “Not the defensive, protective, ‘my baby’ type. Not anymore. She worries, but not to the point where she’ll stop me from doing anything. More likely than anything… you’ll probably be grilled about grandbabies.”

“Oh… ok. Like _my_ mom, then,” Usa sighed. “Good. That… I think I can handle that. She’ll let us rest first, though, right?” She asked hopefully. “I’m exhausted, to be honest. Whether it’s because you are too, I don’t know. I just want to sleep.”

“Let me handle my mom,” Trunks answered with a laughing smile as he tugged her into his arms and powered up to fly, his smile dying and his eyebrow lifting as he realized how much of his ki she’d drained. He couldn’t even power up to Super Saiyan… hell, he barely had enough to fly as fast as he was used to! She’d nearly killed him!”

“Sorry?” Usa managed awkwardly. “I um… I didn’t do it consciously.”

“I know. I’m just surprised that you expended so much of it so fast,” he whispered in awe, only to blink at her giggle and look up when she pointed to the sky. “Oh. _Not_ fast. It’s… noon?”

“Still didn’t take as long as it did for me to get Hotaru’s at least,” Usa commented with a tiny shrug. “That one took me weeks… Rei wasn’t happy when I woke, either. She ranted for an hour and I let her because I knew she’d been worried sick.”

“Wait… Usagi, you said you have… this is five now, right?” Trunks asked. “How long have you been at it?”

“Oh.” Turning her eyes to the snow in embarrassment, Usa just shrugged again. “Since I was twelve, when Haruka died saving me. She was twenty-two at the time and I’d… I’d done something very stupid,” she admitted, mortified to even bring it up. “I don’t want to talk about it.” Michiru had died in battle less than a year later, but everyone had known she’d really died of a broken heart. And it had been all Usagi’s fault. Physically, retrieving Jupiter’s starseed had been the hardest, but Neptune’s had been the most difficult emotionally. There’d been a lot of grief there, a lot of blame, and Usagi had nearly drowned in the oceans of Michiru’s bottomless grief for Haruka. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. She always apologized when she thought of them, it was engrained in her as a habit.

“They’ll forgive you,” Trunks whispered as he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her. He barely knew her, but he could feel her emotions so strongly that for a moment he’d been engulfed in them as if they were his own. “When you bring them back, they’ll forgive you.”

“I hope so,” Usa murmured. She wasn’t sure about that and she never would be until she looked Michiru and Haruka in the eyes and saw that forgiveness firsthand.

“Come on. Let’s go home and get some rest. Then we’ll plan for Mars… and then?”

He was trying to get her back on track, just like Rei always had whenever Usagi allowed herself to wallow in her grief for her guardians, and she managed a shaky smile as a thank you, recalling Rei telling her that Gohan reminded her of a male Usagi. Heh, maybe Trunks would be her male Rei and they’d swapped and married each other in male form. Rei would get a kick out of that whenever she saw her again. “Alright. Home,” Usa sighed. “I haven’t had a home in a very long time, to be honest. So if it seems like I’m weirded out, forgive me, ok?”

“Kay. Come on, arms around my shoulders and I’ll carry you. You know…” Trunks paused as he hovered in the air and looked to the sky. “…you won’t have to walk everywhere to find them, now. I can fly you… can’t I? Or is that against the rules?”

“Hey, you’re right!” That brightened her substantially, and Usagi pumped a fist in the air. “Finding them’s what took so long in the first place! Come on, let’s go and maybe I’ll pick up on another starseed on the way! Oh gods, we’re going to revive the Earth in no time at this rate!” She babbled happily as he took off, grinning ear to ear even with the wind in her face.

They would. They would find them all, and they’d bring everyone back in only a handful of weeks or months. No more long years of searching, not now, when she had Trunks to back her up.


	5. Chapter 5

                “She’s exhausted, Mom, can’t you see that!?” Trunks hissed out quietly as he easily dodged a curious, rapidly growing ecstatic Bulma, and tried his best to make his way to his room. The crescent moon was still on her forehead, and when Trunks had come inside carrying her with dark circles under his eyes, Bulma had taken one long look at both of them and had instantly figured it out.

                _How_ was beyond the young prince.

                “You mated and you’re telling me that I don’t get to meet my new daughter-in-law! I didn’t even know you were dating anyone, Trunks! Come on, let me just wake her up a little and say hi!” Bulma insisted with her best smile, keeping her voice soft. 

                “But… I… _how_ do you even know that!?” Trunks huffed, still reeling that his mother seemed to know _everything_ , even when he was nineteen. “And besides that, no! I wasn’t dating anyone and I’ll explain later! Just please, Mom! We’re beyond tired because—no, _not_ because of **_that_**! **_Gods, Mom_**! You’re _such a pervert_!” He exclaimed hotly even though his voice was hushed. Bulma had waggled her eyebrows and grinned, and Trunks sputtered and glared at her before he huffed his way around her and she gave him a wide berth.

                That shit-eating, knowing grin never left her face though, and for the first time in his life, Trunks wanted to slap his mother just to get her to stop smiling at him like that. It was the ‘my baby boy finally got laid!’ smile, and it embarrassed him to the very fucking bone.

                “Hehehe… just like your father,” Bulma chuckled as her smile softened. “He was a prude, too, you know.”

                “Ugh… Mom, just… go away,” Trunks muttered. “I’ll see you in the morning, we’ll probably sleep through today and the night after all that digging in the snow and then that ki drain and…” When he found himself explaining things to Bulma out of habit, he shrugged and sighed. “We’ll tell you tomorrow. Kay?”

                “Okay, sweetie,” the genius allowed gently, waving him off. After all, he was her baby and always would be, and he really _was_ tired. She hadn’t seen bags under his eyes like that since before he’d travelled to the past, so whatever had happened must’ve really worn them out, especially if the girl had slept through that whole conversation. “Oh… and honey? I knew because you didn’t ask me what room to put her in,” Bulma giggled. “You just started carrying her straight to yours. Your momma wasn’t born yesterday.”

                “Oh,” he huffed. He would’ve slapped his own forehead if he hadn’t been carrying Usagi, so he just sighed and kept moving towards his bed, thankful that it was a queen size and big enough for both of them once he got his door open, stripped the covers back with his tail and laid her down. As an afterthought for his nosey mother, he locked the door and huffed again in annoyance as he stripped out of his clothes and boots, then propped his sword in the corner. He knew he needed to clean it, but he was too tired and left it in the sheath, still stained with his blood from when they’d mated.

                Next came Usagi, and getting her out of all of those layers, and when she slept hard and barely roused even when he tried to jolt her through the bond, Trunks couldn’t help but marvel at her ability to sleep through so much movement. “I hope that’s enough,” Trunks finally yawned once he’d gotten her down to what he was sure was her last tank top and a pair of underwear from her subspace to replace the pair his beast had disintegrated. “Shit… hope it’s not too much.”

                He’d be damned if he was going to try and dress her again, though. She was petite but she was dead weight, and undressing her had been difficult enough, so Trunks snuggled in beside her and used his tail to draw up the covers, hesitating a moment before pressing close and burying his face in her hair.

                With her scent right in his nose, Trunks was immediately asleep.

 

###################################

 

                He woke to bright sunlight and knocking at his door, and Trunks sighed heavily. “Gods damn it I hate waking up tired,” he mumbled as he rolled out of bed on his side and trudged to the door. “Yeah, Mom?” He didn’t even need to check for her ki, he _knew_ it was her. Nosey.

                “Holy shit. Did I actually wake you up, Trunks? I thought that you two were… never mind,” Bulma quickly added. Hell, she could practically see him blushing through the door. “I just thought I’d come up and offer breakfast. Or lunch, rather. It’s one in the afternoon and you’ve slept almost twenty-four hours. She’s… she’s ok, right? Is she hurt from yesterday?” Bulma asked in genuine concern.

                “No Mom,” Trunks assured her, softening towards her as he tugged on his pants, then unlocked the door and swung it open. “See? She’s breathing fine. I told you we were tired.”

                “Yeah, wow. No fucking joke,” Bulma allowed as she studied the lightly snoring, gorgeous blonde. And with that thingy on her forehead, she could _only_ be Sailor Moon. The genius couldn’t keep a little grin from her lips when she saw the edges of a healing mating mark at the hem of the tank top the blonde was wearing, and the sight of Trunks’s shoulder straight-up made her beam from ear to ear. “Tell you what? You wake her up and I’ll have the chef put together the biggest damned brunch we’ve had since Gohan was still with us. Kay? Is an hour enough time? Erm… um… I meant…”

                Trunks nearly laughed at the face she made as she tried to rephrase and waved her out. For once in his life, Bulma was honestly tip-toeing around a subject, trying her best not to embarrass him… and her own embarrassment was what made her attempt a success. “Mom, honestly? I think she’s just gonna want breakfast. Kay? Go downstairs and we’ll see you once she’s gotten cleaned up and dressed.”

                “Heh, well. That wasn’t nearly as awkward as I’d worried!” Bulma cheered before giving him a smacking kiss on the cheek. “My good boy! You’re finally going to give me grandbabies!”

                Before Trunks could do anything but blush and roll his eyes, Bulma was running back downstairs, calling loudly for the chef and declaring that she’d even help him cook the monstrous feast she wanted made for the newly-mated couple. “Oh boy. Hopefully this will go a lot smoother than I think it will,” he commented as he closed and locked the door again and went to the bed, hesitated to wake her, and then slid in beside her again.

                Trunks just wanted to hold her for a quiet minute before they were forced to deal with all of the noise, and as he did so in the bright post-noon sunlight, he felt her stir and yawn into his chest. “Hey, angel,” he whispered into her hair.

                When she jerked back and stared at him for a long moment, Trunks nearly thought she’d forgotten the events of yesterday, too, and almost panicked, but she eventually blinked, looked around, and then smiled before flopping back down and yawning again. “You’re the heaviest sleeper I’ve ever met,” he informed her.

                “Yuuuup… I know,” she yawned again, stretching long and lazily before curling into him and leeching his warmth. “Mmm… warm. It was cold in the mountains, you know. Before I ever made the base of the mountain we were on. It snowed all the time, even in the valley I had to walk through to get there. I got dropped there by a farm truck,” she added as if that explained her entire journey to Ami’s starseed. “Good people… healed their baby when they found me… mmm… so waaaaaarm… I could definitely get used to this. The warm part, I mean.”

                Funny, now that she was awake, Trunks didn’t feel so groggy and tired anymore. Another effect of the mating bond, maybe? He was waking up a hell of a lot faster, and he purred softly when she snuggled into him impossibly more when he ran his fingers through her hair. “You know, I could get used to this awfully quick, too,” he admitted quietly, his face serious when she cracked her eyes open and quickly blushed at the near-worshipful look he was giving her as he caressed the length of her spine. “Sorry,” he mumbled, “it’s um… probably part of feeling the pull. I um…”

                Looking around quickly in an effort to spare both of them any more awkwardness, Trunks nodded towards the bathroom. “Shower’s through there if you want to take one. I can only imagine how long it’s been if you were really on that mountain for so long—er—uh—oh gods, not that I’m saying you smell or anything!” He exclaimed quickly, cringing hard when she turned even redder. “I swear I wasn’t saying that! I meant a _hot_ bath!”

                “Oh. I was about to assure you that I bathed in some really frigid water the morning I nearly froze to death,” Usagi giggled nervously as she recalled his mouth between her legs. “Because, um… that would have been _really_ gross yesterday if I hadn’t!” Before Trunks could reply though, Usagi’s eyes lit up and she beamed as she quickly kissed his lips without thinking and rolled off the bed with a razor in her hand from her subspace. “Yay! I can shave! Oh gods, I haven’t shaved in over a week, the water was too cold to stay in long enough!”

                She was practically squealing with joy as she bounded off into the bathroom and Trunks heard her cut the shower on, and he couldn’t help a wistful, happy smile as he touched his lips where she’d thoughtlessly kissed him.

                Yeah, he could definitely get used to this.

 

#######################

 

 

                Usagi looked surprisingly sad when she finally opened the bathroom door, and when she only went to the bed and hugged him tightly, Trunks wasn’t sure what to do or say and only hugged her back. “I realized a few minutes ago,” she whispered, “that the cabin we were in? It was theirs. I’m sure of it.”

                “Oh,” Trunks sighed. “Yeah… wow. Damn. I almost want to go back now and look around, but… no,” he finished heavily. “No, that feels like a violation of their privacy, doesn’t it? I’m just curious because you are, I think.”

                “Yeah, I had the same thoughts, honestly. But Ami would kill me,” Usa murmured into his chest, her eyes slipping shut as she savored being held by someone for the first time in a long time. The last hug she’d had like this had been four years ago, and it’d been Rei.

It had also been the last time she’d seen her.

“We need to hurry, Trunks. Something’s telling me that we need to hurry, and it isn’t just because I want them alive again,” Usagi whispered. “I’ll know for sure when I have Rei’s starseed, but… I think I might only have a window of time to get this done, now. With five starseeds inside of me… I don’t know. I feel an urgency of some kind.”

“Oh shit,” Trunks hissed, “I hope you’re not pregnant. Come on,” he murmured before kissing her once in comfort when she looked up at him with wide eyes. “Come on, we really need to see Mom, okay?”

Grasping her hand, Trunks pulled her up, grateful he’d already washed in another shower in the next room and dressed. They really needed to see Bulma, and _now_.

The woman in question was waiting for them and grinned and squealed when Trunks and Usagi entered the dining room, leaping forward to embrace her new daughter-in-law, only remembering her manners at the last minute… as well as how possessive Saiyans could be when newly mated. She stopped herself just in time, beaming at her son, who was trying his very best to suppress a growl of warning and failing badly. “Sorry, sweetie,” Bulma chuckled, “I almost forgot.”

Looking between the two of them, Usagi just blinked in surprise until she noticed the way Trunks was standing between her and Bulma, his face set in a deep frown. “Trunks, she’s your mother!” The Lunarian chastised him. “Seriously, behave!” After she’d darted in front of him, Usa gave Trunks’s mother a deep, respectful bow and smiled. “Hello, I’m Tsukino Usagi. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Ha! So formal! Call me ‘Mom,’ seriously!” Bulma insisted brightly. “I mean, you’re married to my son!”

“I um… I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m quite ready for that yet,” Usagi answered with wide eyes. “How about Mrs. Briefs…?”

“Oh gods no, that’s what everyone called my mom! Call me Bulma,” she stated firmly, “I insist. Now come on and dig in, we’ll talk while we’re eating,” the genius added as she ushered Usagi to a long buffet-style table at the end of the room. “I know you must be famished, and if I know Trunks, he’s _always_ hungry.”

“Thanks, Mom.” At least she was behaving—that was definitely something that Trunks hadn’t expected at all. In fact, he’d expected the very first thing out of her mouth to be something along the lines of ‘so, is my son a beast in bed!?’, but even his mother was capable of surprising him every now and then and he allowed her to take his mate to the buffet table to help herself. Every instinct demanded that he fix her a plate after telling her to sit down, but Trunks didn’t want to wind up just as bad-mannered as his father, so he resisted the urge and returned Bulma’s knowing smile when she looked back at him.

“My good boy,” she said softly. “So, how did you two meet?”

“In town,” Usagi squeaked at the exact same time that Trunks answered “on a mountain,” and both of them exchanged looks while Usa panicked and Trunks sighed and shrugged towards his mother. “Well, you tried not to ask an offensive question,” he managed even as he blushed hotly. “I can hardly fault you for this one, though.”

“I was freezing to death,” Usagi offered to smooth over Bulma’s obvious embarrassment. She’d tried so hard to be welcoming and polite and she could sense Trunks’s pleasure with his mother that it hurt her to ruin it. “It’s a long story.”

“Oh,” Bulma said softly before the ramifications of what had happened fully dawned on her. “Oooooooh! Gotcha, I’m so sorry, both of you! I didn’t mean to pry, I swear!”

“We felt the pull,” Trunks added as he shot Usagi a look of pure gratitude.

“Really!?” Totally off the subject of exactly how they met, Bulma ushered Usagi to the small round table and took a seat beside her. “What does that feel like, huh!? I’d always wondered, but Vegeta would never tell me, not even when he mentioned it one night during pillow talk. I asked him if we’d felt it and he shut down faster than a fried CPU.”

“I… um… I don’t exactly remember,” Usagi confessed shyly, looking to Trunks quickly for help when Bulma’s eyes got wide and she stared at first the blonde, then her baby boy.

“Trunks, I don’t want to bring this up in front of Usagi, but do you and I need to have a discussion about consent?” Bulma asked, carefully masking her budding anger.

“No.”

The answer surprised Bulma because it came from Usagi and not Trunks, and the Lunarian was glaring at her hotly over her plate. “It’s between me and Trunks and I don’t blame him a bit for what he did. I’ve seen his side of it through the bond, Bulma. He would have stopped if he’d known I wouldn’t remember it or if he’d thought for a moment that I didn’t consent to anything but the bite.”

                “But you bit her anyway? Without a yes?” Bulma asked slowly.

                “She was dying,” Trunks ground through his teeth. “Imagine Father dying right in front of you, Mom. What would you have done?”

                “Shit, good point,” Bulma conceded softly. If the full mating bond would have saved him, she would’ve done it in a heartbeat without his consent and she would’ve suffered his wrath for it later. “Vegeta never let me bite him back,” she informed Usagi after a full minute of awkward, silent eating after Trunks had taken his place defensively between his mate and his mother. “He only bit me after he sensed that I was pregnant, and the marking was pretty grudging at that. He made me feel like I’d inadvertently trapped him or something, but how was I supposed to know that Saiyan sperm could survive for seven days inside of a woman?”

                When Usagi and Trunks both did a spit-take at that, Bulma’s eyes widened and she shrugged slightly at their wide eyes. “What? Too much information? Sorry, I thought it was relevant! Especially since the two of you have—er, you know what? Never mind. I’m just going to shut my mouth,” she sighed.

                “Phhhhht, and pigs’ll fly,” Trunks snorted despite his embarrassment. _His_ mother, _quiet_!? Never, and it was one of the few things that he and Vegeta agreed on!

                “Um… actually,” Usagi whispered as she looked to Bulma hesitantly, her cheeks still pink. “Trunks and I were worried that I might… um… you know.”

                “Saw that one coming from a mile away,” Bulma snorted before taking a bite of food and then rummaging around in her pocket. “Gimme your finger right quick.” Once Usagi had complied and held out her hand across the table, Bulma revealed a tiny lancet. “You’ll feel a tiny pinch.”

                Usagi hated needles but this was necessary so she looked away before the stick, wincing slightly when Bulma broke the skin and massaged some blood out onto a strip of plastic. Once her hand was free, her finger was immediately tended to by Trunks, who offered her a sympathetic smile and a kiss to the back of her hand while Bulma studied the strip, which turned blue.

                “You’re good, sweetie,” Bulma said with a bright smile and a pat to her shoulder. “It’s negative.”

                “How accurate is it?” Trunks wondered, immensely relieved that that was done and over with. Or was it? “I mean… we can trust the readout, right? Usagi’s on a mission to gather the rest of her Senshi’s starseeds and it’s really physically taxing.”

                “I was climbing a mountain to reach Mercury’s when Trunks found me freezing to death,” Usagi added when Bulma opened her mouth to ask questions. “Then when we reached the starseed, it nearly killed both of us.” Grimacing at the thought of that bad feeling that was still lurking in the back of her mind, Usagi slowly shook her head before looking up at her mate. “I still feel like something’s changed, Trunks. I’m serious. I’m working on a timer now, but I don’t know why and I don’t know for how long.”

                Bulma fluffed her fingers through her hair thoughtfully as she tried to think of something to do to help the young woman sitting across from her, but everything she knew was grounded in science, not magic or even ki. “How many of these star thingies do you need to find?” She finally asked between bites.

                “Three more,” Usagi answered right away. “Rei’s is next—no, Trunks, I know it’s dangerous, but I’m telling you right now that I need her starseed. Besides… it feels right. It seems like it’s the only starseed I can think about, just like Ami’s after I found Mako’s. It’s the one I’m _meant_ to find next, understand that.”

                “You’ll need to be shielded from the radiation,” Trunks said flatly.

                “I can do that with Ami’s starseed,” Usagi replied. “That’s the whole reason I needed it to get to Rei’s.” It was only then that she realized that Bulma was looking at her with purpose in her blue eyes, and the blonde blinked in surprise. “What?”

                “She said to tell you not to trust your eyes,” Bulma whispered, her voice trembling. “I… I’d forgotten about it until now. Maybe I was supposed to,” she added shakily. “Your friend, Rei, after she mated with Gohan. She told me that I’d meet you one day in the far future, and that I was supposed to tell you not to trust your eyes. And… and that she didn’t mean her starseed, either. That it was important that you knew that. Sorry, Trunks. She told me to tell you she was sorry, too. Sorry that you weren’t allowed to know that they’d mated.”

                Rei’s meddling didn’t surprise her one bit, so Usagi took it in stride while Trunks sat there sputtering about it, and she tapped her finger on her mostly full plate as she contemplated the message. “She didn’t mean _her_ starseed. That means that she meant another. Mina’s… or Setsuna’s. Or both,” she muttered, cringing at the thought of being fooled by one or the other. The possibilities of such a thing were endless and extremely unpleasant, considering both Venus’s and Pluto’s gifts.

                “That was quick,” Trunks commented, meaning her deductive reasoning. “Quicker than I would’ve gotten it.”

                “I’ve been dealing with Rei’s secondhand messages since she died,” Usagi sighed. “I’m used to it. You wouldn’t believe the amount of people I’ve run into since she died, and how many of them had been given a message from her to give to me. Honestly… I was angry about it at first, but now it’s kinda comforting, you know? Like she’s still here in a way.”

                At that, Bulma reached across the table to squeeze her son’s hand and offer him a gentle, knowing smile. “Gohan left you a letter, Trunks. He told me I could give it to you when you came home and told me you knew about Rei. It’s in my desk; I’ll dig it out when we’re done eating. And he said that he was sorry, too. Sorry that you couldn’t share in their happiness, however short it was. He really wanted to tell you, but Rei said that the consequences of it would mean that you’d never find—ooooooh… oh wow,” Bulma breathed in awe. “She… she knew. About _you_ , I mean.”

                “Trust me, I’m aware and still a little angry with her for it,” Usagi grumbled. “Even I have to say that this was one hell of a secret, even for Rei. But… I also have to respect her ability to keep her mouth shut as well as she did. There were hints over the years that Trunks and I were meant to find each other, but I didn’t see them for what they were until after we’d met.”

                “Usagi, if you don’t mind an old lady prying… how long were you two alone?” Bulma asked gently. “Rei wouldn’t talk about you a lot, other than vague comments and a quick physical description including the crescent on your forehead. She said I’d know it was you when I saw it and she was right.”

                “The Senshi split when I was thirteen, after Hotaru—Saturn—died. The androids had found a way to track us as a group and she fell defending me when they came after me right away,” Usagi answered, her eyes far away and focused on the wall to the side. “We were alone until Rei left in the spring before my fifteenth birthday. She came back once to check on me but I urged her to spend all of her time with Gohan, reminding her that no matter what happened, we would see each other in a few years. Live or die, I’ll see her again. I’ll keep my promise. I was shit for a warrior then and I’m shit for a warrior now, but I keep my promises.”

                The bitterness in her voice was thick, and Bulma brushed at the tears in her eyes before they could fall, taking Usagi’s hand and squeezing it just as she had her son’s. “I don’t know what I can do to help you, Usa, or even if I can, but don’t hesitate to ask, even if you think it’s impossible. I might at least be able to give you an idea, ok?”

                “Actually, Mom… I just thought of something. The dragon ball radar,” Trunks interrupted. “How did you make it?”

                “Oh, well, they emit a signal of sorts, almost like how you guys read each other’s ki. The radar picks up on the dragon balls’ signal and shows them on a map. Why?” Bulma asked in confusion, “Piccolo’s dead so there’s no dragon balls to track.”

                Coming out of her semi-trance from recalling her awful past, Usagi only picked up on the tail-end of the conversation but caught up thanks to the bond. “Wait, that’s a great idea!” She exclaimed, suddenly beaming even though she’d been close to tears only moments ago. “Bulma, would you be able to pick up on the starseeds if I could give you a sample of each of their powers!?”

                “Huh… I dunno. Maybe,” she replied with a shrug. “Hell, probably!” She amended with a grin. “I built a fucking time machine, I’m positive I can do it! After all, I’m a genius, right!?”

                Normally his mother’s vanity and overconfidence but a blush on his face, but Trunks wore only a smile this time, happy that Usagi had focused on something positive and was grinning as widely as Bulma. “Well, let’s hurry up and eat then,” he suggested happily. “I’d love to watch Usagi do her Senshi thing again, it’s pretty damned cool to see.”

                Blushing at the praise and the hint of desire she felt through the bond, Usagi just shrugged and finally returned to her food, which was getting cold. “I can’t even transform, so it’s not that big of a deal. Well, I take it back. I’ll transform for Gohan and hope it doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass,” she amended softly. “Hopefully it won’t.”

                “What do you mean, ‘for Gohan?’” Bulma asked slowly.

                “I’m going to retrieve his body so he’ll wake up with Rei if we succeed,” Usagi answered softly, oblivious to the bright smile on Trunks’s face when she said ‘we’ and not ‘I.’ “It’s risky since Rei said not to transform at all after she left me, but… I don’t care,” she admitted quietly. “They deserve to wake next to each other.”

                “Usagi, I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but Rei seemed like the kind of person that wouldn’t have told you something unless there was a _really_ good fucking reason for it,” Bulma said gravely. “I’m also pretty sure she’d rather wake alone than for you to put yourself in danger.”

                “She also would’ve known what I’d do and that there’s nothing that’ll stop me,” Usa countered with a heavy sigh. Bulma was right, but the Lunarian knew that she was right, too, and she was going to follow her heart even if it meant that something bad would happen. She’d transform and hope for the best. “Hope for the best, expect the worst. That’s what Mako always said.”

                “Wait. Tell me again why you have to transform?” Bulma inquired seriously.

                “To make Gohan’s body whole again. Otherwise we’re carrying around…” Usagi cringed at that and shuddered visibly, imagining the horde of bodies she’d stumbled over through the years, all of them in various states of decomposition. “Seeing someone like that’s one thing… carrying them, though…”

                Even Bulma cringed, but Trunks didn’t and studied the blonde thoughtfully even as it bothered him to think of Gohan like that. “He’s been dead for five… no, four years. I keep forgetting that the Time Chamber doesn’t apply to the rest of the world except for me and my father. Surely four years would be enough time for him to only be bones… right?”

                “No,” Bulma sighed as she shook her head mournfully, “even without a coffin, it’ll still take eight to twelve years before he’s only a skeleton, sweetie. Sorry,” she added apologetically.

                “It was worth a shot,” Usagi allowed, “and it wasn’t an awful idea. I could have been ok with carrying just his remains to Rei if he’d only been a skeleton, but… I guess I’m transforming. Let’s not talk about it anymore, ok?”

                “You’re absolutely right, honey, this is poor table conversation,” Bulma agreed quickly as she came up with a few solutions to the problem right away. It could wait, though. Definitely not while they were eating. “We’ll talk about some options later on, alright?”

                “Agreed,” Usagi said firmly, smiling as an afterthought and nodding toward the buffet. “And Bulma… thank you for this. I haven’t seen this much food in one place in a very long time. It’s nice to feel normal again, even just a little.”

                “You’re very welcome, sweetie. And don’t worry about the leftovers, we pretty much share everything in this house with the staff and usually we all eat together. I just asked them to let us have this meal in private since it was a special occasion,” Bulma informed her. “Now, come on. Let’s eat and then we’ll get to work.”


End file.
